Why do so many players refuse to take part in forums?

General Discussion
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This has been something I hear over and over from lots of players is that they refuse to be part of any forums community. They say they’re toxic.

Myself personally, I like to chime in hear and there but recently , I’ve noticed too that there really isn’t any tangible information here besides the news the developers post themselves. Everything is pretty much people gossiping with one another just posting repetitive opinions on “what they want to see”, polls about S1 and S2, pad or fightstick like it hasn’t already been done 100 times already and other stuff that’s not really useful in any way but isn’t in the Off Topic section cause that’s where most of these posts need to go.

Like there is nothing besides Infil’s guide and some other helpful posts that actually has KI game related content in there whether it’s discussing tech or Match Ups. Season 3 along with the PC port is around the corner and there are many new upcoming players that are waiting for the PC port release to start playing but can’t seem to find any useful information inside the forums. The ratio between Posts that are actually game related ( this works this doesn’t) VS just everything else is ridiculous.

How else are we supposed to help the new players getting into KI when the main place to find all the info out (these forums) is clustered with repetitive nonsense? Can we please keep the opinionated posts out for a while now and start posting useful stuff?

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I’m not a person to try to tell anyone how to spend their time, or what they should/shouldn’t discuss… that said, it’s objectively more helpful to the KI Community as a whole to have more worthwhile gameplay discussion taking place on this forum.

As a relative beginner (I picked this game up in January 2015), I’ve had to draw from several sources to get the info I feel I need on a case by case basis. Often, I’ll have to draw from information posted about another game entirely, and try to apply it in KI. Not everyone is going to be compelled to be that diligent.

Having serviceable gameplay information in this forum could only help to grow and enrich the community.

tl;dr: I agree, mayne.

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Welcome to the KI forums, where threads about costumes, accessories, and story push the gameplay discussions into obscurity! For some reason the Hisako and Aganos pages don’t have this problem, not sure why.

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Most of the people I’ve suggested the forums to or have heard others talk about way they don’t use these forums mostly has to do with laziness. They don’t wan’t to take the time to read or make an account. The second reason is they feel no one reads these forums.

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I remember in the S2 forums there was a lot more tech discussion going down in the character specific threads. Now apart from Kim Wu and a few other exceptions the character threads are kinda quiet in terms of tech. Maybe its because now that a lot of the characters are older in terms of time in the game, people have become a bit more complacent with the “what’s good, what’s bad, etc” for those characters. Since there isn’t a lot of new tech going around, more often than not things like the guide @Infilament did become a source of facts rather than points of discussion.
I agree that there should be more game discussion on the forum, but at the same time I feel there isn’t a ton to discuss that hasn’t already been said. Unless there are some major balance changes in the near future, I suspect there won’t be a ton of new discussion until the new characters start rolling in.
Though I think a lot of the drought may be coming from a lack of knowledge outside of the community. I played the game for a solid year before I even knew these forums existed. And community forums for Bungie, Call of Duty, Shoryuken, /v/, and anything MOBA related probably don’t help the stigma of the “toxic” label for online gaming forums.

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My own reasons for mostly not joining any fighting game forums.

Content:

  • Usually the (new) characters I was interested to play either had little information in terms of how to get started. So there was no use for me to create an account
  • Notation/language used. For some games the notation was so different (from SF that I played the most) that I just stopped trying. This comes down to laziness on my side.
  • I have a preference for gameplay vids. The best tutorials and gameplay info I found on youtube, but it is usually one way communication. Watching matches and high level players go at it is more fun to me than reading texts ( @Infilament your guide is the best, though).

Toxic reactions:

  • The disrespect people would get when they express themselves in a wrong way sometimes was just toxic.
  • People giving friendly advice but get burnt hard just because someone else disagrees. Emotions run rampant a lot of the time.

My own lack of knowledge of the game:
Not really a reason for not joining but more about contributing on gameplay topics

  • I am a pure casual player. If I can get by without knowing frame data then I will do that. I judge characters and their moves by how cool they look and then see if they work or not. Sometimes the most effective moves can give you a win but I can refuse to use these moves of how corny they look. If you think like me then it is hard for me to give advice to people, especially when neglecting half the moveset and their properties.
  • “Time” I almost forgot. With my fulltime job, I just want to have a good time and not spend time to study a game for fun. So as much as I want to help creating useful topics, without time to go into move properties and studying OTHER characters than your own main, it will be difficult to contribute effectively IMO.

So why did I join this forum? I only joined KI forums because it was tied to developers/publisher. And I found in general that people here are very helpful.

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Never heard of these toxic complaints if anything forums are just not very cool imo. I don’t think an average joe says “I can’t wait to go on the forums!”

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Repetitive posts are inevitable, man.

Though personally, I like spending time on these forums and discussing topics…as long as I give a damn about said topics.

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When forums are awesome, people are talking about cool ideas and exchanging thoughts and advice on gameplay, characters, how to get better at the game etc. But you can also pull up tons of examples of people just bickering about trivia. Some people would rather just avoid that hassle. That’s fine. For what it’s worth, I think this forum is far less toxic than many others, particularly others associated with the FGC.

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I feel lucky to have people participating in my Hisako gameplay threads. I think Aganos is similar to Hisako in the sense that they both have a unique game plan, so I think we’re compelled to talk things out for our own benefit as well as the benefit of someone who recently picked up the character/thinking about picking up the character.

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There’s many things involved in writing in a forum:

Do you like to type? Do you like to read? Do you like to argue? Do you like to sit in front of your PC? Are you afraid of internet bullying? Do you care enough about the game?

This is why there’s as many “forum lurkers” as there’s people participating in them

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Same for me with Aria. I would have never continued to learn her if the initial responses were negative. There seems to be a good atmosphere for learning and teaching.

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The community definitely hasn’t solved every matchup in the game. Its possible that not a single one of them is fully solved. Lots of variables to discuss, lots of techniques and ideas to share and try. Plenty to say that hasn’t been said.

I would also like to see a larger percentage of the forum really dig into the game. :hamburger:

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A matchup is a living discussion. As time goes on, and more people play, new things will be discovered and perspectives will shift as a result.

Also, I think a lot of the discussion that’s already been had about matchups is housed in the old S2 forums, which are currently inaccessible and no word on when they will be accessible. There’s only a handful of tech/matchup/gameplay threads in this new forum, so I think it’s worthwhile for us to revive those discussions.

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@TheKeits & @Marbledecker I wasn’t really thinking of matchups (mostly general character tech, i.e this manual can come out after this linker/auto/opener, these linkers do the most damage, etc) , though you guys bring up a good point. Meta is an ever evolving thing, and sometimes it changes without a ton of extra updates. A prime example would be the sudden awakening of rushdown Kan-Ra that became super prevalent around Frostyfaustings, or all the crazy new goodies Aganos players are coming up with like trapping people in a 6 foot section of screen and poking them into oblivion.
Maybe I just don’t seem to notice a ton of extra tech discussion (at least with older characters) since whenever I think I’ve found something that hasn’t been posted about i usually just get 2 or 3 responses basically amounting to “oh yeah, I do that all the time!” :stuck_out_tongue:

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Apparently if there were no spectators, or casual or “middle-tier” players discussing non-tech stuff, there wouldn’t be a community to join…

I can give a dozen reasons why I can’t really dive too much deeper into the game than I already am, you can give at least two dozen suggestions around those reasons… And that would be my point on why I enter many discussions here.
(You either understand what I mean, or you don’t :wink: )

Within any gaming community, it’s only a small population that is hardcore enough to consistently push tech-talk. (The smaller the overall population the larger that percentage grows).

To grow that overlapping portion of the community, they must lead.

It has been nice to see a few of the higher level players drop in once an a while to post a video or paragraph, it’s even greater that a couple consider here, if not their KI-home, they do A KI-home…

So if there are those that want to see more tech talk at the dinner table in their home, perhaps they should show more initiative themselves?

You want tournament tech-talk out the wahzu? Help bring in some of those Youtuber and 8-Bit consistent top players to lead. You can remind them that linking their channels and such only helps get more views!

OR, you can just go to the tournament websites themselves to discuss nearly exclusive tech-talk with minimal fluff-talk and possibly a bit more uncontrolled salt.

As is, I do believe switching forum formats 4 times and losing the continuation of some threads and/or not having access to them has hurt a lot.
A lot of saved links and such just don’t work and not many had the mind to save all the threads they liked/needed and not just the ones they created.

… To answer the title directly, “some” is such a vague group in size and possible mentality that I could list off what others have and will list themselves and it’s all correct.
Why don’t more join THIS community when it’s certainly one of the least toxic sites out there?
Because less toxic communities take longer to grow but as they do, they do so stronger!

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17

While on subject, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who’s participated in my gameplay threads in the Hisako section. Thus far, it’s a bustling sub-section filled with good information and productive debates, which is exactly what I hoped for. I’m definitely encouraged by the interaction to keep that trend going for as long as is possible.

Also, hats off to @LeoFerreis, @MonsieurDerp, @GalacticGeek and the other Golems active in the Aganos section. I’ve definitely learned a lot from the input.

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If I was a top player, I’d want to come to the forums to learn about high-level gameplay strategies, not so much to discuss the aesthetics/lore of the game. I feel there’s probably less of the former and more of the latter, which makes some top players not all that interested. Of course, there IS meaningful gameplay discussion happening here (if you know where to look), but if you were to browse the “Latest” tab on the forum index page, you probably won’t find too much of it.

That’s fine and stuff, of course. People are welcome to talk about all these things. It’s just probably not where most top players’ priorities lie.

The game is still incredibly far from solved. Like… I think KI is, by far, the LEAST solved fighting game still played at majors. To suggest that the game has solved matchups or there isn’t much to talk about is super far from the truth. In fact, I think KI has some super interesting theoretical discussion that I try to engage in (about counter breaker risk/reward, etc)… you can really apply some neat game theory to KI! But people just seem content to talk in memes about scrubby play, lack of fundamentals, etc and not actually analyze what’s happening.

As for toxicity in the forums, yeah, there’s some now and again, but some top players (in all fighting games) will create their own drama wherever they go, so I don’t think avoiding the forums is saving them, or the scene, from toxicity.

But in general, yes, I agree that more meaningful discussion on KI would be a great thing. Beyond my own efforts with the guide/my style of posts, though, I don’t know what else I can personally do to encourage it.

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I think it may have to do with the way some people act out here on the fourms.

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its kinda relative… ?