"Beginner friendly"?

[Eglaios]

Maybe it wasn't meant for beginners, but we're talking about a FG that's new, is quite alive and has a free version.
If anything and with Riot's fighter coming soon, that's a perfect occasion to introduce the genre to lots of new people

But if anything, "beginner friendly" is not what I'd say of such game.

• Near-zero assistance for newbies. It's like throwing every musical concept at you then "aight get that in your skull, tell me when ur ready I'll match you against Beethoven".
  It's 2023, other than ultra-basic ones (FOOTSIES), not a single fighting game could pretend being beginner friendly. I yet have to find one that teaches the player to learn everything and know how to use all the options together by progressively unlocking moves and introducing scenarios with multiple ones involved at once rather than throwing everything separately.
  
  
• The backseat loli at the end of each fight is the definition of "useless". Fine players know how to play, and it is nothing but annoying for a nub.
  Simplified inputs aren't what I'd call beginner friendly neither. It's like getting a better music software ; nice, but you'll wanna know how to write music first.
  
  
• The tuto is way worse than the prequel, which was already quite bad while being one of the best of the genre.
  
  
• Even hellish bots (highest level) are far from every single fight I got in green-gem ranked ("I know a bit about fighting games" and lower).

It's not like no beginner content makes this game bad, it's just that still today, nearly every fighting game (hi footsies) beginner experience will be "get rekt for 10s of hours before eventually understanding the stuff".

In the eyes of a new player, is it worth not getting humiliated for that long without even knowing whether it's gonna be enjoyable once all the work paid off, and often not even knowing what to do to actually get better?
Why not just picking up some other game that will provide quick fun without such a long struggle?


I mean it's 2023, the gaming industry met psychology since quite some time (just look at live service marketting tricks), and fighting games themselves are about understanding and predicting the opponent, yet the newbie experience as always is "Welcome, you're gonna get stomped for a long time without ever getting rewarded, before you even know whether you like it. Here's the pdf manual, but you'll wanna check online anyways since the tradition forbid us to include frame data and character strategies in the game"

Am I raging? Of course. I do wanna love fighting games, but each time I give it a try, it burps in my powerless face because "git gud" and doesn't encourage in any way to stick on it, then I drop off once again.

[pseudo]

I'm not sure what you expect them to do. People whined that motion controls shouldn't be gatekeeping players and that fighting games should be about strategy. Now that you don't have to do motion controls, the skill ceiling has dropped and you have a fighting chance, but you're still not content.

since the tradition forbid us to include frame data and character strategies in the game

They actually do have this in the training menu, in case this changes your mind

Character Strategy:
Training Menu > Character Guide > 2 tabs over there's Character Explanation > There's even a quick strategy button for a quick rundown on common buttons

Frame Data:
Training Menu > 1 tab to the left (or 4 to the right) is Display > Turn on Frame Information
It will straight up tell you how + you are, and there's all sorts of other options in the game. This game is VERY informative on what the advantages of each move is and keeping things transparent for the player.


At the end of the day this is a highly skilled genre that will require dedicating time to practice and educating yourself on various concepts. This isn't something you get better at in 10 hours. Get a buddy around your skill level and you'll have a lot more fun with it. There's also a crap load of information both specific to this game and general to all fighting games on Youtube, Twitter, etc. that you can apply to your training. There is simply no shortcut to success. Even if the developers hand you the information silver platter and simplify the controls for you, you're gonna have to practice.

[Fish]

OP, have you gone through every single training scenario in the training mode?
There are a ton of practice scenarios ranging from the absolute basics, to character practice, even specific character counter strategy. Go through every single one of those and you'll come out with a pretty solid understanding of the basics.

Frame data display is in fact a feature in the game's training mode. Considering you didn't even realize that, I suspect you did not take a thorough look through all the training mode options.

Being beginner friendly doesn't mean the game takes no skill to play. You'll need to at least put in the effort to learn or you will never improve.
This game has probably the lowest execution barrier of the fighting games I know of, but this doesn't mean there is no depth. The skill gap between someone with experience vs someone brand new will be great, and you will lose a lot. This is simply part of the experience.

The early goal of any fighting game isn't to win, but rather, it's to self-improve from the matches you've played and winning at this stage is simply a byproduct of the journey. It should not be the focus.

[Tyrone Biggums]

Originally posted by TSC:

Originally posted by Eglaios:

If anything and with Riot's fighter coming soon,

Thats false. Project L can be released as ""soon"" as 2025 for all we know.

riots fighter will be harder than this game

[Rhythmless Ninja]

Best advice for all new players is drop the egos and just practice if you want to get better; everyone started in that position. That means a very large amount of losses. However it's worth it because basic fundamentals will carry on to every single fighting game making it much much easier to transition to any others you may want to play.

If you really feel you absolutely need to be winning to have fun...answer's still practice. Finding someone around your skill level is cool and all but you won't learn much because they won't punish your bad habits, which is the reason you're probably losing in the first place. This would be a different story if you were both intermediate players though.

Lastly, this is the most beginner friendly fighting game next to Street Fighter 6, who literally has a combo bot as one of the control modes and a easy input mode. There's no input barrier in this game to new players, only fundamentals. No matter how many excuses are made these are facts that aren't going to change.

That said, Riot games is already too late. Street Fighter 6 opened the floodgates to a ton of newcomers to the genre thanks to all the easy mode controls and their single player world tour mode.

[PewPew]

It is the easiest it has been. Put in the effort and see the reward. You don't just come in play and expect to win. Even in let's say CSGO or VALORANT you just don't go in expecting to win on your very first try. You either get absolutely smoked, or you get carried by your teammates.

This is 1v1 so you ain't getting carried. Work on it.

[Soji]

These games are being made easier and easier. There's only so much you can do to lead players down the right path. The ingame tutorial could probably be more indepth but there's no amount of hand holding or tips and tricks that are going to make new players take a loss easier. That's entirely an ego thing and is up to the player themselves to want to keep coming back after a loss. If you want to enjoy fighting games, a huge part of that is taking your lumps and learning from them.

[Sirlion]

Tbh this is the easiest fg I've ever seen. Easier than SF even. Characters have quite literally the same tools tied to the same commands, its streamlined as hell and the tutorial does a decent job. Its handholding: the game. If you complain about it, you were never going to put any effort into practicing in the first place and this game is not for you.

[BACKSTABUUU]

The new player experience in fighting games is always going to be rough no matter how easy and accessible you make your game. That is the reality of the genre, fighting a real person is not something that you can be prepared for without just taking the plunge and getting beat up.

Project L is going to be even worse about this because it's a tag fighter btw.

[Cipher Esteria]

Ok lets get over this.

1) Op doesn't own the game
2) Op complains about a lot of things not being there, that are in the game.
3) They made easy inputs specificaly for newer players, they just didn't take the technical inputs away for everyone else who wants them.
4) There are 2 Tutorials, one in the Story Mode and one in Training Mode, where you can go trough every scenario under the sun
5) There are also character Guides in Training Mode
6) There is also Frame Data in Training Mode
7) Speaking of humaliation, I had a long talk with someone new to FGs recently and it doesn't bother him that he loses a lot, he expects it since he is new to the game and the genre.

The general problem is that for some reason every of these posts people expect that there will be some way to avoid getting their teeth kicked in early on.
You have this in every game you get into under the sun, you will get dunked on in PvP until you start to understand what to do, this is just what the learning experience is.
You don't just grab a Guitar (since OP loves music examples) and can play it perfect from the get go, it takes failing, practice and sticking to it to get good.
One very good thing about FGs is how experience from one game will translate to another.
Concepts rarely change and the only thing you have to adjust to are the games rules.

Lastly I recently had another talk about why people don't stick with FGs, difficulty was brought up, but quickly drowned out.
How so? Because there are Millions playing difficult games, a lot of them more difficult than FGs and they are getting praised to be excellent and even if people die 50 times to a single enemy, they keep playing.
It's about the mindset and what you want to achive.

I don't play FGs because I want to win every single match, I play them because I want to fight other people.
If someone stuff my face 10 times, that motivates me to work on myself and makes me want to beat that person even more.
In a way I play because I want people to beat me, to give me a reason to push more forward.

It's about the mindset in the end. If you just want successe from the beginning, maybe play something from Ubisoft or EA.

[Fish]

To be fair, not owning the game likely just means OP is on the f2p version so I don't doubt there were at least attempts (though I question how much effort was put in there), but yeah, everyone starts off being the punching bag when being brand new to fighting games.

Gotta be able to accept the defeats and learn from them to improve.

[Reiitha]

no ever fighting game that's "newbie friendly" this is already near friendly but netral heavy make it harder if u face skilled opponent. guess what they should do is if they're already good how about just rank up not to smurfing in D rank to beat up new player

[Ahriman]

you will hate project L because from what they've shown so far it will be mega degenerate.
this game did everything it could to cater to beginners and you're still not satisfied. maybe you could just play anime arena fighters instead of trying to play a genre you clearly aren't motivated to get good at and demanding it caters to your every whim. it's time for some introspection. getting good at ANY fighting game means legacy skill that carries over to all fighting games, just drop the ego and learn, you didn't even bother to check everything in training mode since you claim it has no frame data display. enough time to write up this essay but not enough to check every option in training mode, my kind of humor

[Peddie]

It's definitely more newbie friendly than SF6 as SF6 complicated itself more than it had to with the Drive meter, a crucial resource that is used for blocking, parrying, EX moves, guard breaking and more besides. I love the game don't get me wrong but sometimes I go against a newer player in the Battle Hub and they generally falls into the category of "Burns out the meter in three back to back EX moves" or "Is so afraid of burning out that they don't use it for anything else than chipless blocking"

GBVSR keeps it very straightforward in terms of resource management, allowing players to focus more on the fight. And the option of motionless inputs further helps streamlining the process of getting to the process of learning the fundamentals of fighting games quicker than ever before.

[Bigamo]

Game is crap. It got to the point where the average rank S nerd is getting 30 hit combos from a single conversion. Dead game. NO GAME EVER works like that, This is the point where every single game dies. Most people don't want to have to memorize 30 hits combo to stay competitive.

[Peddie]

Sounds like somebody's salty. Or angling for jester awards, not sure which.