What do you mean by that? Please. Explain yourself.
The Competitive scene of any game has never hurt ANY of the casual scenes.
IF ANYTHING it makes it better by bringing in new players.
Miss me with that BS.
You probably should if you care for the game’s future, you’d be surprised how many games died because players were spread too thin or gated behind exclusives.
Also keep in mind the amount of salt that was created (and used to fuel countless cases of Incinerate!) when people found out there will be 3 guests in MK11’s Season Pass 1. Do you honestly think people will tolerate yet another guest, let alone one that is exclusive to one specific system? Not to mention how Boon himself said how many companies are uncomfortable having their characters in MK because of the violence, and how Kratos was given special treatment for many fatalities in MK9 to not look weak (despite the earlier game Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny being allowed to have Dampierre make Kratos cry like a baby).
Fact is, many companies don’t want to set their world on fire to cater to Sony or Nintendo (Microsoft has long since bowed out of that race if I recall), let alone make a massive amount of changes in adherence to their outlandish stipulations. And that’s on top of the massive backlash already native to guest characters in general. I’m not saying it’s a horrible idea; assuming Sony wouldn’t be too overprotective I know NRS could make Sweet Tooth work. But unless you have control of Kronika’s hourglass that won’t be happening in this timeline.
Also on the topic of a tag fighter, I was thinking of just fixing the MK9 tag system; it worked when infinite combos and other game-breaking bugs didn’t spoil the fun.
I’m actually not sure that this is true. KI’s competitive scene arguably hurt the game when players who made a name for themselves winning tournaments started to actively campaign against the game and its direction. I also think a developers focus on the competitive scene while neglecting the casual market can really hurt the game. This is pretty much exactly what happened with SFV. I also think some things that are not broken for competitive players but unduly frustrating or disproportionately difficult for less competitive players tend to be ignored by developers (“what? It’s not hurting SonicFox or Honeybee. Git gud). Things like supergirl’s teleport in IJ2 come to mind.
In general, I don’t like the idea that somehow casual players and competitive players are in competition with one another, but while I don’t think it’s common, I do think there are examples where the competitive scene - and companies focusing exclusively on that scene, have hurt the game from the perspective of non-competitive players.
Yeah, while I don’t disagree completely with your thesis I think it’s probably a mistake to put roster size and lack of console exclusives on competitive players. Competitive players don’t like exclusives but I don’t think they are lobbying for smaller rosters. I also think tournaments simply ban exclusive characters and that’s that.
The reduction in single player content for many fighting games has to do with companies not understanding what the data they collect really means. They see that very few people spend thousands of hours in single player content and assume that people only want multiplayer because a fraction of the player base racks up millions of multiplayer hours. But the reality is most players don’t beat most games, and the majority of fighting game purchasers want single player content even if they don’t go through it all. NRS understands this the best - and yet they still get flack for it.
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I dunno how to respond to this tbh…
Although I will say that’s not what I’m talking about? Most competitive scenes are usually full good chaps and not the way causing thoughts was talking about.
But I’m getting off topic.
So I’ll drop it hear.
What do you mean Microsoft has bowed out of the race? They’re still making a new Xbox and still developing titles for their system.
And sure, many companies are weird about having their guest characters murdelized (I don’t exactly know WHY. I mean they’re fictional characters.). But that problem is exclusive to MK. It doesn’t effect them appearing in Tekken, or SoulCalibur, or Street Fighter, or Injustice. And even then. People are still not doing console exclusive characters meaning that really cool potential crossovers just aren’t happening.
And about people freaking out over guest characters. They need to get over it. Guest characters are cool. Crossovers are cool. And there are probably going to be 3 more guest characters in each consecutive Kombat Pack for this title. NRS has been clearly shown to not care about this “outrage” because their data always shows that guest characters sell consistently higher than MK/DC characters.
But whatever. I guess.
I remember hearing some time back that MS was done doing exclusive content for multiplatform games on their systems, that’s what I was referring to. In that regard, they definitely bowed out of the “system exclusive characters” race.
In the case of the other fighting games not doing system exclusive characters I just assumed licensing was also an issue; I don’t remember Mewtwo getting in the WiiU version of Tekken Tag 2 for example, but there was a costume set to make the main roster look like Bowser (or was that costume just for Heihachi?). But I’m not gonna pretend I know anything about the legal climate, so I’ve got nothing further to say on that.
As for the last point I agree, people go nuts when they think their favorite character got ousted in favor of a guest, when history has proven that if the devs didn’t want to bring certain characters back they just don’t. Also doesn’t help that some people become more crazy than others; I have legit seen people react to the guests in Tekken 7 in ways that can only be described as hate speech. But I guess some people are doomed to become demons for material reasons.
Also not all crossovers are cool, there was that cartoon mass-crossover in the 90s that turned out to be nothing more than a mediocre anti-drug PSA. Just putting that out there.
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Ok… but it was still cool to see all those characters together. Sure, the special isn’t good. But the still frames from it are pretty rad. There’s just this magic to seeing two worlds collide that entrances me.
So let’s all work together to end guest character racism!
As for Microsoft… I mean, that doesn’t stop other companies from asking them “hey, can we put Banjo in our SEGA Racer?” Probably just means they won’t force it to be system exclusive like Sony or Nintendo.
Mostly finished with my vacation, so I’m back to the forums. Yay!
I wouldn’t have guess you liked tournaments, but surprised to hear you think they actively hurt casuals’ experience with titles. Is this because you feel they cause developers to focus overmuch on balancing and player-to-player issues?
Because Mario getting his head blown out through his ■■■ is a touch off brand. :-p
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- I feel that certain things that I like in fighting games (console exclusive guest characters, large roster sizes, and “unbalancable” mechanics) are just completely omitted from fighting games because of tournament play and balance. Games are not a sport. They’re games. I also feel like most developers put the tournament scene first rather than developing content for more casual fans.
- Okay. Then explain things like Kratos. Or the thousands of reasons i’ve Been told Bayonetta wouldn’t work. There are plenty of M rated brands that also fall into this category of getting jumpy with fatalities and I just don’t get it
They ARE a sport though, the same way basketball, or soccer, or archery are sports. They may have all started as something simply for fun, but anything built around competition is likely to be pushed further than the relatively simple beginnings. People like to put themselves to the test against each other, it’s always been this way and I suspect it always will be. “official” competition will also require rules, and balance. That’s why a featherweight boxer doesn’t face a heavyweight in the ring, why goals and hoops have regulation sizes, why teams can only have a specific number of people on the field, or perform certain actions at a specific time.
Fighting games, in particular, are competition-centric, and it should come as no surprise that FGC e-sports are important and central to the genre. I actually think boxing or mma fighting is the perfect reflection of the FGC, both on and off the “field”.
Again, everyone has their own interests with regards to fighting games. Even outside of fighting games, and video gaming in general, balance is important. It isn’t fun to play rock, paper, scissors, when you’re only allowed to choose rock, and your opponent knows that. Nobody wants to play a game of checkers with half the pieces of their opponent. as a very specific, intended challenge? certainly. But not during normal competition, even if it’s casual.
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As I said earlier in the topic, a number of fatalities had to altered when done on Kratos because Sony didn’t want Kratos to look weak. Maybe NRS didn’t want to go through that again, since entire animations had to be changed and it probably came entirely out of their wallet to do so.
In the case of Bayo, Kamiya is notoriously picky when it comes to where she can appear. I already mentioned the Project X Zone 2 incident some time back, and I doubt he cares enough for MK to allow her in there. As for other M-Rated characters, I just assume like Kamiya with Bayo they go by the logic of “my house, my rules” in regards to their characters being affected by fatalities.
But like I said before, I know nothing of the legal climate so the reasons could be bigger or smaller than we think. All we know for certain is Ed Boon’s statement some months back, on how many companies aren’t comfortable with MK to let their characters in.
Welcome back. Off topic, but the pictures you posted on Twitter were fantastic. I’ve never been to New Zealand but it’s on my bucket list…
This is a weird (and usually non-productive) conversation. It comes up all the time about “esports” and gets all wrapped up in people’s unstated assumptions about what defines sport and what defines game instead of letting them talk about what is causing the discussion.
I tend to agree with @xSkeletalx that the games ARE being played competitively. Whether we like it or not and whether we want them to be or not. I think companies have responded to this in all different ways. Nintendo has been downright hostile to the Smash competitive scene and now sort of begrudgingly acknowledges it. Capcom made a huge deal out of the Capcom cup and introduced SFV as a big esport game - although it’s not really clear to me how much of a priority this is in terms of tile and budget. If you look at what they’ve done to SFV since launch, they have grown the roster (which is the opposite of what you would expect @CausingThought6, based on your assertions about prioritizing competitive interests), introduced a story mode and more single player ladder modes. So basically everything they’ve done since launch is to improve the game for casuals. While they don’t even post coherent patch notes for the competitive scene.
Since this is the MK thread, as far as NRS it’s pretty hard to say they are abandoning the casual players in favor of the competitive crowd. They have included a story mode that probably cost tens of millions of dollars to produce which has zero appeal for competitive players. All those towers and grinding that you hate are there for casual players. SonicFox is not worrying about the towers of time and unlocking colors. I suspect he hasn’t entered the Krypt. So you May not like it, but it’s all about the casual player. This is without even mentioning fatalities and krushing blows and cinematic supers like fatal blows which are also in there to appeal to casual players.
I also don’t think it’s reasonable to think that the developer is balancing the game around the competitive scene instead of adding more content. The kind of money Capcom puts into Capcom cup isn’t even enough to make a single KI stage let alone one of the MK11 characters which have multiple skins, gear and move variations. NRS might well be putting $500k into each character so their kompetetive circuit just can’t be the reason you don’t have a 65 character roster with guests and 3D era characters.
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Ok then. I guess. I still don’t like the competitive scene and wish it didn’t exist. But whatever i guess.
Totally, cool. There are certainly days when I have felt this way - especially when watching some pointless drama unfold or listening to half baked complaints about the gameplay.
This I don’t get. Just out of spite? Not to be too personal, but I kind of would expect that you would be especially open to the idea that people might want to play in different ways and not necessarily conform to any individual or groups ideas about how they “should” be interacting with the game and it’s community.
I don’t really think it’s a “zero sum game,” meaning every penny spent or moment devoted to fighting game tournaments is one less penny or moment devoted to things you are interested in. I think a thriving competitive scene can contribute to a game getting more attention, support and content for single player casual players to enjoy.
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I don’t know. In my experience the second something becomes a “sport” it gets ruined. People take it way to seriously and it starts dividing people along “team lines”. I don’t know. Maybe I am just a little bitter too, and over exaggerating how much it actually effects me getting what I want. I just remember a lot of early stuff where I would throw out an idea for a character or even a whole game, and the idea was just dismissed because it “wouldn’t work in tournaments”.
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Because Kratos getting his head blown out through his ■■■ is also off brand. These companies have invested millions of dollars in making their IP’s the most badass, unstoppable, and powerful SOB’s to ever exist, and it flies in the face of that notion to have more-or-less regular guy Kano stick a broken bottle in his neck and dance with him like a marionette blood fountain.
You’re a big fan of power fantasies Thought. A big part of how violent action protagonists are marketed is for their unstoppability, and even when they die in horrible ways in their own game, those experiences are tailored and curated precisely to the developers wishes for that character. I’m not a huge huge fan of power fantasy per se, but even I have things that can turn me off from a character I like when I feel they get shafted. I dislike Thor Ragnarok for that reason, feeling they turned a serious and super powerful character into a punchline. If the movie had a chance for a cheap laugh over a dramatic beat it took it it, and I hated that. I’m pretty obviously in the minority for how I feel about Ragnarok, but the dynamic I’m describing it what I think companies are afraid of, righty or wrongly.
My cousin used to have a saying about what defined a game versus a sport. If you could play a full, complete game of something without having an opponent (as in bowling or golf), then it is a game. If you need to have an opponent, then it is a sport. That definition has always felt right to me, but there are obviously official sports (such as bowling and golf) that fail that criteria. I say all that simply to say that the definition of sport versus game is fuzzy and not at all agreed upon, and whether you think it’s right, wrong, or indifferent, there are absolutely people who approach FG’s with person-to-person competition directly in mind.
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But like… I still don’t care. Like, sure, that content exists. But I never see it unless I loose. Not to mention that it still dosn’t bother me. If anything, I feel like the fatalities are out of character for certain MORTAL KOMBAT characters. And if Kratos having a few different facial expressions and animations during fataities is what they have to do then fine. Of course, they might not think so… but I still want to play as Sweet Tooth and Bayonetta, and I’d buy two copies of the game to facilitate that.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see how these guest characters are handled. Spawn, Ash, Terminator, Joker… a good few of them are ones that I’d imagine would have Kratos-esque stipulations on them. We’ll just have to wait and see.
As for games vs. sports… I can play a fighting game all the way through and never require another live person. I almost never play with other people. So…
-shrug- I’d submit that you’re playing a hollow shell of a fighting game by never playing against a human, but at that point we’re just arguing semantics. You like what you like and are more than entitled to it, while the devs and players are similarly entitled to their own preferences. I’ve less than zero interest in arguing that videogames are sports; just figured I’d put out some food for thought.
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Maybe I would play against online if
A. Online didn’t cost as much as a whole game every year
And
B. I wasn’t sure I’d loose every match and just get frustrated. My 9 year old cousin can beat me at games I play every day that he only plays maybe once a year. No way i’d Ever win online.