You dislike fighting games for the wrong reasons

Just in case this wasn't clear: this video is not meant to convince you to like or even try fighting games. It merely aims to make you think about what is it that you really like or dislike about them. If any point of the video makes you go "nope, that's definitely not for me", that's completely okay :)

My two cents as someone who has bounced off the genre multiple times: - The reason the skill floor is more daunting in fighting games than it is in learning to play guitar is because you can play the guitar on your own. You are dictating the whole experience. You can get good at guitar without getting into dozens of guitar battles with strangers where each one declares a winner and a loser. Reaching the skill floor for a fighting games means fighting other people and losing, over and over and over. It's demoralizing and exhausting. - You make an excellent point that the 'difficulty' in a fighting game just comes down to the skill gap between you and your opponent. Unfortunately, fighting games are a narrow niche with a loyal fanbase and a lot of transferable skills. Last time I tried to play Guilty Gear Strive online as a novice, there was literally nobody online below the highest level of the tower. 90% of the playerbase is people who love fighting games and have been playing them for years, so as someone trying to enjoy them casually I wander into versus mode, try to find someone at my skill level, fail, and fight ultra gods for an hour without winning a single game. Again, demoralizing and exhausting. - I don't even know what the solution to these problems is! How do I get a foot in the door when everyone inside has years of experience? That skill gap discourages new players, which in turn reinforces the gap because there aren't enough new players coming in. It's a vicious cycle, and I don't know how to fix it.

The true fighting game skill floor isn't what people really think it is. Teaching a new player a hadouken is way more intuitive than teaching that same player that the heavy kick and heavy punch each have their own damage/range/recovery differences, and even stuff like that really is the most basic, because they do wanna know which button does what, etc. It isn't that fighting games have MORE information, because generally, they actually don't. It's the way it's being presented. Even in games with single-button specials, all the other stuff is there(unless you're Fantasy Strike, which died for a reason...), and it's ALL front-loaded. Presentation of info in fighting games is either done little or not at all, or in a long series of boring tutorials most players will NOT complete. Most players just want to be able to hop in and play, which is honestly one reason why Tekken does so well. I'm not saying it's a mashy series, Tekken fans, so don't get rabid, I'm just saying the way the combo system works allows two brand new players to both mash and see cool shit happen. When you mash in anime fighters and other 2d motion fighters? You just kinda throw a lot of jabs and sweeps.

I don't like fighting games because I like the sensation of the journey and seeing myself evolving is one of my favorite sensations, I just don't have the patience to do it with fighting games, and doing something without improving is something I don't like, spend days, weeks at a hobby to see little to no improvement is one of the things I hate the most, so fighting games lives in a limbo for me, it's good enough that I want to play but not enough that I want to devolve a ton of time on it, and play for long stretches of time and not improving makes me mad.

A big part I think is simply understanding the game. In many fighting games, especially if you're new to them, you often don't even understand what you did wrong when you lost. Why didn't that attack land? Why wouldn't I block that attack? How could he get out of my combo, but I couldn't? And it can even turn around the other way. You won. But you don't understand what you did differently from last time. Also the classic. For someone to get that super cool 50+ perfect combo win, someone else had to eat that.

I've found that PVP is one of the biggest turnoffs to me when it comes to any genre in gaming, whether playing against strangers or friends. I can spend dozens of hours attempting to take on a difficult challenge through something like Gungeon or Monster Train, where the feeling that comes from overcoming the challenge is based around surpassing an unchanging skill threshold. By contrast, playing against other players pits you against a constantly evolving metric that only lets you gauge your skill relative to who you're facing. I get little extrinsic motivation from PVP games, which discourages me from sticking with them for much time. The fighters I've played the longest would be Smash and BlazBlue., both of which have single player modes that I played almost exclusively. I'd rather my skill get a letter grade than know what percentile I'm in.

For me, fighting games are just one of the genres that feel the worst to be bad at, and that's always prevented me from enjoying them even though I find them really interesting. Some of this may be that my experience comes from occasionally picking up a controller at the invitation of a friend who clearly has more experience than myself rather than being matched with someone of my own skill level online, but even so: in fighting games, you aren't the only person in control of your character. So when I'm trying to get a hold of the game at the most basic level and seeing if I can remember that combo I thought looked cool, it can be incredibly frustrating when after hitting the first button my character isn't throwing a punch, but actually they're stunlocked midair and then thrown to the opposite side of the map

On the note about focusing on how far you are from “pro level play,” I think a part of that is that Fighting Games can feel really restrictive (and as a result, unfun) until you’re at least competent. Very few feel natural to just pick up and play. As you mention, the skill floor is higher than most genres. Fighting Games just aren’t intuitive to control for anyone coming from other genres. I think that’s why Smash is more popular casually, despite still having an incredibly high skill ceiling. Beyond even the simpler inputs, the inputs just make sense intuitively to people familiar with general game controls. Want to attack up? Press up and attack (up tilt.) Want to attack up harder? Press it harder (up smash.) Stuff like that makes it easier than most Fighting Games to pick up, and in turn makes it easier to start having fun enough to enjoy the journey towards the skill ceiling.

The main thing that happens for a beginner is that they go online, get completely demolished by people who know basic neutral and pressure and then get up because they feel very overwhelmed by it all. The main problem I think beginners have is just not knowing at all of concepts crucial in fighting games beyond how to combo and lack of teaching tools that aren't player made guides

I want to like fighting games but learning them is like a full time job

“There is a fighting game out there you will love” There was, and it was beautiful. RIP Blazblue

For me, what irritates me is how I can feel like I'm putting in the right directions on the D-pad/stick, the game (regardless of which one it is) will always register an extra direction, and that single "wrong" imput is enough to prevent a combo from working.

Great video. Love how you broke down alot of misconceptions, and even tackled the mindset of "Fighting games are for everyone" (a statement I dont really agree with either). Its a bit annoying when the FGC gets an ego about itself

Really enjoyed this video. I particularly like how you acknowledged the other side instead of just saying they are wrong. I get that fg content creators will approach things from a fgc perspective, but sometimes it gets in the way of having a deeper and more holistic discussion. Great work and keep it up.

Yo someone else who notices the many similarities between FGs n martial arts? YEEEEEE

About your question in regards of why many people quit FGs at the door, I have my own little theory about that. I strongly believe that the "feedback" the game gives you is the main reason. A fighting game shows the players only "You win" or "You lose", even in combo trials it mostly says "perfect" or "failed". This feedback instantly starts to make you think - mostly subconscious - about the game, your time investment and what you could do else instead of see a "loser"-screen. Funny thing is that most of the friends whom did started to try FGs and stick to them also like to play soulslike and/or monster hunter - both also games/genres which give the player fast feedback about their skill. I would love to give now any idea how to change/fix that but I do not see how that could be done in a way which fits the genre....

I had the opposite journey than you did. I was really into fighting games when I was younger because I had friends and family who I could play with. I had that sense of "micro-wins" and learning what works. Fighting games always felt like multiplayer games to me, so once that in-person setting went away, I became more of a casual spectator. That said, I still enjoy single-player games that have fighting game mechanics (like Speed Brawl, River City Girls, F.I.S.T., or Guacamelle)

I'd agree that RTS usually has a lower skill floor, but that isn't the issue. The difference is player feedback mechanisms. In a strategy game, there is enough time and immediately available information someone can understand why something didn't work within the match itself. Fighting games, on the other hand, have situations like not inputting quite fast enough changing the outcome or an attack having a weird disjoint on its hitbox where it's difficult to ascertain what exactly happened in a controlled environment with a cooperative second person, let alone in the midst of an actual match.

As a fellow martial artist, Ive always preached the similarities with fighting games. Besides consistent execution requiring training, you have to measure distance, break up your rhythm to mess up the opponents timing, and think 3 moves ahead. Becoming somewhat competitive in Street Fighter fed my fighting spirit and inspired me to train myself again. I love the competition and learning from my defeats. Great video sir.

I'm someone who has been trying to get into the genre since 2018 and this is a great video BTW. I kinda wanna toss out a couple things since I have a unique experience with the genre due to some disabilities I have. Firstly, despite what I've tried, I kind of doubt I've even really reached the skill floor in the genre and it's part of the reason things have felt so crushing, I can't find a win satisfying when I don't get why it happened and a loss feels crushing when I can't tell what I did wrong. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that I can deal with extreme amounts of overstimulation, and plenty of these games push me to a point where I can barely tell what's happening, if I can see what's happening at all, I even had a game I clicked with ruined by its particles preventing me from being able to tell what moves my opponents were using in blockstrings so I had no hope to try and read a mixup. Any time anyone got hit you might as well of turned the screen pure white and muted the audio for how well my mind could process said information. I primarily wanted to add this since it feels there's a genuine issue with accessibility in the genre, even outside of motor and executional requirements, and I think it's the biggest thing that's kind of hampered a genre I know I could enjoy a lot without it.