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The Biggest Problems in Fighting Games

Fighting games: they are the ultimatum... the genesis of competitive play in video games. There's almost no other way to win than player skill and understanding your opponent's assets in a fighting game. It's just you and [typically] the other player, going head-to-head, toe-to-toe against each other to prove (even if just for a minute or two) who is the best, and its a pretty quick way to separate the men from the boys. However... Fighting games are also not very popular with players for various reasons, and many have had long-standing problems with the genre and its conventions. However, developers of said fighting games continue to make and sell enough copies to players that they manage to stay afloat for further titles. So then why do we keep playing them, and what exactly are the problems that people are having with such a beautiful game genre? I've played a couple of them myself, and have watched so many hours of professional play matches over YouTube it's not even funny. And along the several years I've been doing so, I've gathered just from watching them alone and looking them up online just what the majority of those problems are.

1. Lackluster plots in relation to deep character backgrounds

One of the first issues I saw in fighting games is the lack of a story as deep and meaningful as the characters who are featured in it. While some games can get away with how lacking in depth or cheesy the story is by their other features, there are more games in the genre whose stories are sub par because they lack any real depth or hardly push any genre-related stereotypes. This sort of problem is mostly disappointing only for the reason that a lot of these games' have characters whose backgrounds are much deeper than the game's plot. Now, there are games in the now that are fixing this sort of shortcoming as we speak, and by that means it's getting better and that we may see tolerable plots in our fighters of the future (and to a degree, already have). I'm about to shed some light on why some game's plots are very simple and lacking depth.

Coming up with the story or plot to a game is hard enough on its own, having to convey many things as you're playing along such as tone, characters, dialogue, plot, character development, and so forth. However, I believe it's the most difficult with fighting games and particularly for a couple of reasons. In relation to a fighting game's individual combat-centered gameplay against an opponent in a dedicated space, the story of the game, given its wide selection of player characters has to permit the characters in the story an excuse to fight each other and to a degree, why that excuse exists. It's a particularly hard concept to construct in such a game without resorting to abundantly used conventions, and many plots faulter because of it. It's not like some other games where you're only one player character interacting with and/or battling many non-player characters, which is much more fluid for many other people.

One such and the most common example of a lackluster trope in fighters is the corrupt fighting tournament. In short, the very core concept of these kinds of stories are that participants (the player characters) fight in a sanctioned tournament until a winner is determined. At this point (usually), the host then fights the winner for some usually twisted and corrupt reason. Granted, this kind of story has been used in what are staple games in the fighting game genre. Capcom's Street Fighter, SNK's Fatal Fury,Art of Fighting_and_The King of Fighters_series; Midway's/NetherRealm Studio's _Mortal Kombat, and even into our 3D titles like Sega AM2's Virtua Fighter, Bandai Namco's _Tekken_and Tecmo-Koei's _Dead or Alive_all use this story scheme as a core part of their plots. This kind of story provides a very understandable and simple excuse for all these games' player characters to fight one another in combat. It is also a reasonable if not typical setting as all these games mentioned involve characters with martial arts training doing one-on-one hand-to-hand combat in particular disciplines.

Weapon-based fighting games are more subtle about it, often using historical or fantasy settings where armed combat between fighters is common. In this sense, the fighting is justified because of that very fact. SNK's Samurai Shodown_and_The Last Blade_as well as Namco's _Soul_series use this sort of setting for their stories. The more recent games, such as Arc System Works' _Guilty Gear_and_BlazBlue_series use fantasy settings, albeit in futuristic ways that are reminiscent of science fantasy, and Reverge Labs/Lab Zero Games' _Skullgurls is set in bygone but modern-esque times with a sort of high-fantasy setting. Both works are notable for their in-depth and unconventional storylines in this regard. Crossover fighting games typically are the outlier in the respect of storylines, as most crossover fighting games have minimalistic plots, often because the simple appeal of two different series and/or brands being featured in one product is enough to draw in fans to play the game with minimal attention to how or why they are even fighting.

2. Tedious move execution and skill expectance

Often cited as one of the largest problems of fighting games before but especially since the turn of the millennium, many beginners to the genre loath this part of fighting games. That is... the games are incredibly complex and complicated. In particular, many cite the problem immediately with the fact that many of the moves in the game require complex steps with precise timing, and that those moves and their individual aspects require a lot of study and timing precision... too much for many beginner players to perform. By the time most beginners learn the skills needed to play the game at a competent level even just casually, most will have moved on to a bigger and better game. That's not the kind of time a lot of players who aren't familiar with fighting games want to put into playing an interesting game. It makes it even less beginner-friendly as almost all fighting games today make use of multi-hit combo strings, often in the high single or double digits, and with many moves that have more than two steps more per move that have to be put in at precise points and times in a combo string, beginners will find themselves bombarded with information, both basic and complex they can't exploit without very proficient hand and timing skills as well as understanding of how they work.

The other reality of it and why they have not changed is because many of these complex and hard-to-learn mechanics are considered almost integral to the genre. So, why change something that's not really broken? Why not just leave fighting games to the ungodly-talented people who play them? Many fighting games still sell sufficiently enough to warrant successive titles. They create a great aesthetic and gameplay that would look and usually is addicting. So then why bring this up in a part of the article that specifically is being used to address this as an issue? Here's the reason why...

Today's gamer culture is much more reliant upon what sells and caters to as wide an audience as possible. While gameplay is only about a fifth of what constitutes a selling point for most games, it most heavily shapes the player's perception of the game's quality. This means that the better a game plays, the more likely the players will think the game is good, regardless of its other drawbacks, such as, for example, a bad plot. Often times, the gameplay in fighting games is hit or miss with players because of their often incredibly complex game mechanics that require relatively heavy execution skills. Most casual gamers: the majority of the gaming market's audience will usually give up playing such a game within a day or less because it just doesn't have what is called "pick up and play" simplicity. In other words, newcomers to the game would not be able to understand and sufficiently perform the actions necessary to play it in a short enough amount of time for the player to remain interested in the game.

This basically means that the majority of the audience for fighting games are the skilled and elite players who've been playing these games for many years. The kind of player skills needed to play the games for these veterans are similar from game to game, so they often have to practice much more leniently with the game than others, with the majority of this practice being centered on learning strategies and practicing/learning what combos work for each character. This would mean that veteran players can more readily enjoy the game and it's mechanics much sooner than beginners can, who'd have to first develop their timing precision and hand maneuvering skills before they can even begin to practice the things the game wants them to do, which is a monumental obstacle for a lot of players. This causes most fighting games to have small niche audiences of experienced players and often loyal fans.

However, there have been a few examples of fighting games that beginners could easily pick up and learn. The most prime example of this kind of beginner-friendly fighting game is Nintendo's only fighting game franchise: _Super Smash Bros._While the game isn't known because of its simplicity (in fact, it's more so known for being a Nintendo crossover-turned-developer-made-fangame, and for it's unique gameplay aspects), this is a definite perk for new and veteran players alike as the less-skilled and more-skilled can play together without the lesser-skilled feeling like complete idiots for not knowing how or being unable to sufficiently play the game. This means that matches are closer and less one-sided than most other games, and with the addition of stage hazards, summons and even the _Final Smash_mechanic:_Super Smash Bros._take on the "super" in other fighting games, gameplay's more equalized than in any other fighter I've seen

However, in recent years, the gameplay in _Super Smash Bros._has been criticized mostly by veterans because it's gameplay speeds have slowed (Which creates a wider margin for error) and the games are relying more on chance elements that don't reward players for their skill. In essence, this creates too much balance between players of different skill levels and in some cases, reward is achieved with little work, which deters the moral players simply because there's no significant imbalances that separate the highly-skilled and lower-skilled players. Some of these elements also frustrate veterans because they would be disrupted from, KO'd during or even lose in a fight they were otherwise winning because something other than player skill or the other player themselves occurred.

_Super Smash Bros._also isn't a traditional fighting game, even in the most lenient of senses, and Nintendo obviously made the game to be fun and casual rather than professional. Another traditional fighting game that has [relatively] simple gameplay would be Tecmo-Koei's _Dead or Alive_series. By incorporating combos instigated by merely pressing single or two buttons in sequence, the players felt they could sufficiently play the game at an acceptable level, and thus get into it much sooner. The more complex moves and its fast-paced gameplay is also a perk for veteran players as it provides them with new and more challenging experiences. However, even _Dead or Alive_isn't without its drawbacks (for now, excluding the majority-female cast of sexualized women and how people keep obsessing with how their boobs bounce).

Dead or Alive, like competitors Virtua Fighter_and_Tekken_is full of complicated, hard-to-execute moves that aren't practical in application when playing the game, meaning there is a vast chunk of the character's movelist that will go unused by almost every player who picked up the game. This can deceive some players who haven't already acquired a strategy guide or looked up some strategies online by making them think they have to keep each move the character does in memory and having the ability to execute such a move when they need it, never knowing they may never have to use them at all. With_Dead or Alive's fast-paced gameplay, this means that the more elaborate combo inputs in the game have to have quick and pretty exact inputs, meaning input timing and precision is again an issue for learning players. Often, they will unintentionally button mash trying to get the combinationas well asthe timing for those inputs right, and end up doing a whole other combo altogether. This is minor though with DOA, as it involves pressing attack buttons and usually only one directional button at most. Other games with a traditional fighting game layout with a simple control scheme are usually games based on non-video game series usually as a tie-in, most of which are based on animated cartoon television series, especially anime (which is just the Japanese equivalent of such).

Many fighting game fans do not play these tie-in games however, as many are very easy to play and are intended mostly to appease the fans of the base series and not the fans of the fighting game genre. Quite a few of these tie-in titles have also had a reputation of being lacking in game quality or void of much complexity making high-level play less spectacular.

3. Too many revisions coming out too early

You know how it feels to buy a game you really wanted to buy the first chance you got when it was released? It felt very rewarding and amazingly good to get a first copy of the game you really wanted to play. Now... take that feeling, and quickly turn it to regret and shame only months to a year after you bought that good game. This is basically what every fighting game fan goes through when their developers decide to re-release the whole game. This isn't a problem most of the time... why in fact, many jump on remakes of their favorite games the first chance they get... only for fighting games, it's not that complex, yet is at the same time. While this is not all fighting games, many have done this bout of marketing blasphemy to many's hard annoyance, and often the most popular titles are culprits to this.

When other developers, usually in another genre of game re-release a game, It's usually been at least a console generation or two before they put the game back out there on the market, and typically more than one aspect of it has been improved. Fighting games are more spontaneous though, many fighting game developers deciding to pump out re-release after re-release after re-release only a mere many months or even a year or two after the original game came out, and no one has done this constant headache of a scam than the vet itself: Capcom. Street Fighter II had to be the golden game of the genre and no one else can claim that but Capcom, being the father of the modern fighting game. However... Street Fighter II also has to be one of the most re-released games I've ever seen... With there being Street Fighter II Turbo/Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, Super Street Fighter II,Hyper Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II HD Remix... that's five different versions of the same game, and the former half of them were released within three years of the initial game's release!

That's a lot of updates! There's more yet at that. Street Fighter IV_had three revisions if you count the console version of _Super Street Fighter IV_and the arcade version of _Super Street Fighter IV_as separate (which on consoles are regarded as such). Koei Tecmo's_Dead or Alive 5_also had three revisions over the course of 4 years. Arc System Works' _Guilty Gear XX_had a staggering five revisions over the course of 11 years, even through copyright conflicts with Sega, the birth of the similar spiritual successor (even though _Guilty Gear_is still ongoing): _BlazBlue, and two console generations.

Conclusion: Possible Solutions?

Now obviously I ranted on for a long while about the more ethical problems with fighting games problems. So, because I've typed your eyes out with that, why not offer some solutions I think will make it easier? I will first start by saying that there's exceptions to every rule, and, especially in the case of stories in fighting games, and in some merit the steep learning curve of fighting games has been addressed by select titles. Games like Mortal Kombat, Tekken_and even both of Arc System Works' fighting games have all been notable for their unconventional story arcs, with all three developers' titles met with critical acclaim. _Skullgirls has been noted for its tutorial system being one of the best in the genre. However, this still doesn't quite fix a lot of the things that the games in the genre could fix to make them much more accessible to new and some veteran players as well. I somewhat debriefed on the story issue in that section of the article, and I'll be honest and say right away that the whole revision problem is probably never going away, not matter how irritating you feel about having to by an upgraded version of a game within a year or two of buying the original, as we live in a generation of the gaming industry where microtransactions and downloadable content are kingpin.

However, there's big room for a solution as far as the tedious and multi-step command inputs go, and most of them pertain to toning down the requirements needed to perform moves. I mean, how long can you keep requiring players to input (Down), (Down-Forward), (Forward) + (attack), or (Forward), (Down), (Down-Forward) + (attack)? Or even (Forward), (Down-Forward), (Down), (Down-Backward), (Backward), (Forward) + (attack); (Down), (Down-Forward), (Forward), (Down), (Down-Forward), (Forward) + (attack); (Down), (Down-Backward), (Backward), (Down-Backward), (Down), (Down-Forward), (Forward), + (attack); or even (Down-Backward) , (Forward), (Down-Forward), (Down), (Down-Backward), (Backward), (Down-Forward) + (attack)? Seriously, why not just have players put in (Up), (Up), (Down), (Down), (Left), (Right), (Left), (Right), B, A, Start to win while you're at it (and bonus brownie points if you caught the reference)? All these inputs are for individual attacks, mind you; termed "Special" and "Super Special" attacks as the general terms. Truth be told, the whole reason games have control schemes like this to perform moves all comes down to this type of gameplay being a washover from the original Street Fighter_and _Street Fighter II.

In those games, it was intended for these moves to be hidden or used more moderatively, and it worked in the case of the original. However, in Street Fighter II, a bug which later established the backbone for combo-based fighting game formulae all around the world made utilizing a character's moveset more liberally a practical requirement with players being able to chain together moves rapidly which included weaker attacks feeding into these "special" moves to deal monumental amounts of damage. Before Street Fighter II unintentionally invented combo-based gameplay in fighting games, the special moves of characters were designed with this tedious, strict execution as a form of balance; to utilize their effectiveness, you need to put in some work with your hands. In such, these niche moves now became inexpendable assets no different than your normal moves rather than that one ace in the hole you pull out when you can't beat 'em with anything else, and the fighting game table has been dictated by it ever since.

So, my solution, as I suggested earlier in this particular section is mainly to peg down the execution requirements needed to perform these moves. Now, I know; doing that breaks the entire tradition and it can wreck havoc on balance, but here's the thing: that 'balance' by making the move execution difficult to execute is only useful if you aren't supposed to be using that move in moderation or on its own. Because nearly every character has special moves integrated into their playstyle and are universally axiomatic to properly using the character and making the majority of their combos, that moderation goes straight out window. With the way the good majority of fighting games incorporate special and super-special moves, they have to be utilized (most often in conjunction with other moves you chained before or after it) to maximize their tactical effectiveness, otherwise the player is fighting a seriously uphill battle.

So by toning down the move execution requirement, the game becomes so much more accessible because now players won't have to worry as much about the competency of their real-world physical skills just to play the game properly, nevermind proficiently. Moves can now be executed with simple, quick inputs rather than complex inputs having to be put in with strict timing. Players can now worry more about formulating strategies and mastering their combos rather than just mastering one move input just to do it once. It can truly be simple with its controls while it can still maintain it's more complex mechanics. Example: instead of doing a quarter-circle on your joystick before you input an attack button to execute, perhaps you can just push forward and the attack button at the same time to execute a special move (like in SSB), and maybe to execute a super-special move, you do the same thing but with, let's say, simultaneously pressing three attacks buttons just to make it not as difficult, but still not too easy that they can just do it on a whim without even thinking.

It's improvements to accessibility in this regard that can open up more opportunities for your game, and honestly I'd play the f*** out of a game like that.

... Now, I could get into the topic that plagues the genre the most: genre stagnation, but I found it a bit too obvious and repeated in many people's views on this particular topic, so I didn't cover too much about it, and as well, it's a more general problem with popular game genres in general (first-person shooters can be said to have the same problem, just not as on grand a scale as what happened to the fighting game genre the first time around). Again, this is just from my own perspective and experience, and I get people experience and want things differently according to them.

Welp, that concludes this article about what I personally find wrong with fighting games and how I also personally think they could be better. Have an opinion or your own take on what fighting games could improve upon? Leave a comment, or better yet, make your own point in your own article or what have you Until the next time!

Sincerely,

=Miss -Madam- Poodle=