Do you fags agree with this?
The other side of the argument is when it comes to complexity, fans of Fighting games do want complex combos that can be done in a split second, they generally hard to do. When you pull it off however the reward you get from doing it in your brain is even greater.
Discuss.
It's kind of a fine line between complex and complicated, but if the strategy isn't complex then there's no point.
I've always thought that if the controls are simple, there is a limit to what your strategies are. If you have more moves, actions, etc, the more depth and strategy that can be constructed.
I feel like complexity often forgets about fundamentals, so it goes both ways. You can't do your 36-hit combo with simple controls, but when you have 36 separate actions to control, you often forget about simple stuff like dodging in more than one direction.
>you often forget about simple stuff
Isn't that the fault of the player though?
what faggy reasoning.
>easy to access and intuitive design so people will intially start pumping in quarters
>ramp the difficulty at the right times to force people to keep pumping quarters in
>this retarded comparison between street fighter and mortal kombat
i just want to do sub zeros freeze move with quarter circle punch
I'm talking about the game's design.
There are a couple of things to talk about here, especially since multiple topics are being brought up which should be addressed.
For one, multiple buttons do not automatically breed confusion or complexity in a game. If anything, multiple buttons tends to generate less complexity due to being able to map each action onto a specific button. Some people might remember some older NES games where Up + Attack might generate a secondary attack or be the command to talk with an NPC, causing confusion with a player didn't realize they even had another attack or wanted to operate a door. One particular example of this is in the Castlevania series: for the NES, the whip was the attack button and the special weapon was up + attack. But on the Genesis, the special attack was assigned to the third button so the character could now use up + attack to attack upwards, or to use their whip while ascending stairs. The same applied to the SNES Super Castlevania IV.
It is true that some developers have decided to make their games too overly complex, even with the buttons provided. One good example are some FPSs, which seem to encourage "clawing" just to have enough buttons to operate. Part of this can just be the number of necessary commands for a specific game style: a FPS by necessity requires both thumbsticks, which means only 4-6 buttons available for non-movement commands (assuming L3 and R3 are available on the controller).
However, there is a good point that a lot of developers just don't want to make "easy to play, hard to win" with their games anymore. They want their games easy to win, due to it being easier to sell such a title on the market. And the "easy to play" isn't necessarily a factor of the method of controller. There are pure touchpad rhythm games with one meaningful "button" and PS Dualshock games which use up to five (or ten, depending on how you could) and both are fairly easy to understand and play.
(cont.)
>The other side of the argument is when it comes to complexity, fans of Fighting games do want complex combos that can be done in a split second, they generally hard to do. When you pull it off however the reward you get from doing it in your brain is even greater.
I'm generally in this camp, and there's another layer to it: if combos are more difficult to perform and you have to spend a longer time learning them, then all of the time you spend practicing the combo is going to drill the sequence into your head so you don't forget it. Easy to perform combos that aren't don't have an intuitive flow like the usual light > medium > heavy combos are harder to actually recall in the middle of a match.
Wouldn't the PC negate this though? And developers did switch their philosophy on design to a more easy to approach and beat design it wasn't only to attract casuals, remember, casuals did start playing the arcades and arcade games were easy to start playing but hard to finish and something that players did back then, master the game. Obviously mastering the game back then was rather complex and easy at the same time because games back then were short. And that's also something that developers take into account, games today are easy because they want the players to finish the game since there are so many game's vying for everyone's attention. Make the game too hard, people will drop it. But is this necessary when most casuals don't' care about games? Why can't developers cater to the niche market and be content with their profits.
(cont.)
Addressing Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat, it is rather amusing to see someone siding on Street Fighter on the side of simplicity or "easy to play". The whole point of MK is that the characters all play alike, with exceptionally similar normal attacks, in order to make the game easy to play. This was stated by developers and was one of the big factors (generally against MK) back when both games were popular. MK's special moves were generally easier to operate, as well. Sure, it has one more button, but overall it was far easier to pick up and play Mortal Kombat - and exceptionally easier to pick up a new MK character - than it was to do the same in Street Fighter II.
As for your statement, combos and input commands have little relevance to each other. Mortal Kombat 3 highlighted this: each character had a few "hard-coded" combos where, with a specific series of attacks, the character would toss out their special combo which was guaranteed to string together. These combos were generally far trickier to pull off than similar combos in Street Fighter, thanks in part to being nonstandard attacks that you can't pull out and practice with outside using that specific combo. However, it certainly didn't get people switching over to MK3 due to that combo system, regardless of complexity.
(cont.)
As for the topic you bring up, I think that it is the variety and depth of options which fans of fighting games enjoy. The variety are the different options available, while the depth is the difference between such options. If one character has a bunch of options but one is clearly the best, then there is no depth and so not much enjoyment. If there are several options but each has their own good/bad qualities, then there is far more depth and it is more interesting.
Although on the other hand, there are people who prefer flashier fighting games to ones with more depth. (both players and audience) This is not doubt where the Tekken fans and the MvC fans are coming from: it's not a tense match between two people where one mistake could end the match, but rather the first person landing a hit pulling off a lengthy, flashy, and complex combo. It's the skill involved in pulling off such a string of hits - and the visual display in doing so - that is impressive.
That is where I am too. Yes, all games do need their fundamental but complexity and depth are both linked. It's retarded when someone who doesn't have the knowledge or time spent can just come in and do the same amount of combos you can because it's easy to pull off. The strategies around those combos eventually even out and there is only so much you can do. If a specific combo is hard to do however and the risk/reward is balanced, it adds another depth it.
There's some weird philosophy among modern AAA developers that requires them to use every single button on the controller, no matter what the game calls for.
>why punish the player for not learning the 13 button layout?
Same retarded argument people bring up when they demand an easy mode for dark souls.
I am not against it, but these people also do not realize that the control method/difficulty/complexity is a central part of the game, and saying it should be made differently would change the game.
If they have a problem with such integral parts of the game they should realize that they probably simply do not like the game, instead of demanding that something they do not like be changed to their liking.
He's ridiculous for saying simpler controls are better and then saying Street Fighter did it right. If he really cared about simpler controls he'd be a Smash babby and nobody would listen to him
>Wouldn't the PC negate this though?
Keyboards have almost the opposite problem: there are too many keys, far too many for someone to become immediately familiar with each one. If you play something like Mario you can immediate familiarize yourself with the controls within a few minutes of playing, even with a more complex controller like the SNES or N64 ones. The first thing most people do with PC games is try a familiar control scheme, and when that doesn't work, just run their fingers over the keyboard rows to see what triggers something.
The extreme case of this was really old PC games (original Ultima 4 comes to mind), text adventures, or MUDs. People aren't immediately going to think of W, E, U, I, S, D, N, and M as the key buttons on a keyboard. It's why so many PC games use something familiar (WASD, arrow keys + ZXC, number keys like WoW) and tend to stick everything else in a paused inventory menu. Realistically, there's no reason why you need a menu on a keyboard, except that most players aren't going to remember the uses of over two dozen keys.
>mastering the game back then was rather complex and easy at the same time because games back then were short
This is a good point, as well. You could probably pick up nearly any NES game and, unless it is a RPG, finish the game within an hour assuming you are skilled enough at it. By contrast, a rather "short" game from today, something like Devil May Cry, takes nearly two hours to complete by dedicated speedrunners. It's around 6-8 hours for most playthroughs.
>But is this necessary when most casuals don't' care about games?
I don't know about that. Games are not selling 5 million+ within their first week because the hardcore game market has expanded that much or because casuals "don't care about games". Clearly they do, at least enough do to continue making purchases.
And to finish up on this (fuck character limits)
>Why can't developers cater to the niche market and be content with their profits.
I'd argue that some do. Super Meat Boy was still made. Dustforce, Rabi Rabi, and Wings of Vi all still came out. And to look at some other niche markets: Vanillaware is still successful, as is Marvelous and WayForward. But the size of these companies (generally indies for the super-difficult ones) kind of highlights just what the size of that market really is. You aren't getting AAA developers to develop for those markets in part because it would be a loss, and in part because it would hardly be worth their time. They're spending all their time and money developing their next AAA title. It would hardly even be worthwhile to devote just two or three people to creating a challenging low-scale platformer, even assuming that the paychecks for working at a AAA studio wouldn't bankrupt the project directly.
Interesting. I guess this could be subjective, first because I don't consider modern controllers to be complicated, much less older controllers that had 2-3 buttons at max. I also dont' consider the keyboard to be complex either since I know by heart where most keys are without having to look at the keyboard. Most of the time I play older games I can easily find out what each key does rather quickly. The problem said in the OP is complexity, something that I do not think much games have these days specially since you said that most games today are casualized, which objectively, they are. The only complex games I can think of are Paradox's strategy games but then again it isn't complex either becaue the majority of the time is just finding out what does what and getting a hang of the interface.
>Devil May Cry
Devil May Cry has been designed with the old philosophy in mind, it isn't in any way an example of what modern games are really like. Oftentimes I think the combos are easy to perform and it isn't complex. But I get what you are saying.
Casuals do buy games but games that they can finish quick or games that are generally catered to them, it usually falls within one series, e.x. COD, ASSCreed, Madden, etc.
>Dustforce
I absolutely hated this game and because of another gripe that I have with video games. Loose/laggy/unresponsive controls. When I press a key or button I want my actions to be done instantly, not take 1 minute for it to start and another to finish. But then again, make it TOO instant and the animation wouldn't look too realistic, it would almost feel as if you are controller paper. There has to be a fine fine balance that few games get right.
I never really thought Street Fighter had decent controls. I remember taking an hour trying to pull off a shoryuken in Street Fighter 4's practice mode on a dpad, and even then I wasn't able to really replicate it. I wish a fighter with Smash's easy to use moves but with combos on par with an anime fighting game existed.
I don't think that modern controllers are complex as much as developers trying to cram too much complexity onto a controller. Hardly anybody thinks about the controller and decides on a button layout based on how it is set up. Most developers seem like they just decide on a bunch of actions, and then map them to controller buttons which don't conflict too much.
Hell, Mega Man X (SNES) put the jump/shoot buttons on B & Y - rather than A & B like the NES Mega Man titles - because the developers played through the game and realized that holding B & Y on the SNES controller felt more comfortable. But if you play a NES Mega Man game on most of these combination disks then you'll find the jump/shoot mapped to A & B, or O & X, because the developers porting those games don't think about what is the most comfortable and best way to use the buttons on the controller.
>Devil May Cry
The reason I picked that game is precisely because it is very similar to many old-school games... except that it takes half a day to play through and complete, rather than 40 minutes of most older titles. People expect more playtime in the games they buy today, which certainly does factor in to the difficulty a developer would put into a game. In a 40 minute game, they feel free to throw in a tricky stage or difficulty final boss because replaying isn't a big thing. In DMC any single stage could take longer than that, so a platforming section or boss which is especially annoying would be more of a detriment, especially if the game had more of them than an older NES might have.
Literally just fucking RIGHT->DOWN->RIGHT
That's it
I suck at fightan games and can't do most 360ยบ moves, but that's mostly because of my shit gamepad. If you can't do a fucking shoryuken 100% of the time then your controller is broken or you're just casual shit
>Hell, Mega Man X (SNES) put the jump/shoot buttons on B & Y - rather than A & B like the NES Mega Man titles - because the developers played through the game and realized that holding B & Y on the SNES controller felt more comfortable
Capcom isn't special, jump is fucking B in Super Mario World. The real question is why Nintendo didn't put A and B there in the first place if they knew at launch they got it wrong
In anime fighters theres usually some kind of Stylish or Easy combo mode