Theres no if... Sirin most definitely has a point and it does not over shadow Chens point but it most definitely over shadows yours..... I don't know what you read into that article but Chen's basic point is the characters should feel different..... personally I think its lazy to give two identical moves different inputs make characters feel different over having two different moves all together that literally make characters unquestionably different. But thats an argument for a different time... perhaps in the imaginary future when Capcom stopps clinging to nostalgic nonsense... thats never gonna happen.
No where did Mr. Chen say anything about the difficulty of those inputs should be a factor, his argument is they should be different so that they are most optimal in different scenarios like on block or while moving forward or if a character is in mid air.... his argument isn't about deliberately designing inputs to arbitrarily increase the chances of Failure like yours is. Like it or not Chen is not one your side of the table.... you're cherry picking his points to make them inline with your unique brand of logic that only makes sense to you.
Because, for the most part, we were never saying that inputs needed to be difficult. We were more about how those inputs gave the moves certain properties and allowed for a certain amount of variety.
About Reversals..... they are strongest at the beginning of the Reversal Attack and most vulnerable in the middle and end...... kind of like DoA's wake up kicks..... if for some reason you have untouchable reversals that are completely invulnerable and unpunishable then do you honestly think changing the input is going to make it weaker ? All you doing is creating a completey unnecessary gap between people with different execution skills.... perhaps I suck at performing the reversal input and I get punished when the wrong move comes out instead..... Daigo on the other hand can just keep doing that shit without a care in the world because the problem was never the input.... it was the mechanic itself. I suppose your response to that is "Then find an Exploit to beat that untouchable reversal"..... thats bad game design.... its a valid competitive tool but that doesn't mean the developers made a good game.
Except we've seen exactly what happens when you nerf reversals to hell despite making them easy to come out. You get a game like Mortal Kombat X where offense is way too strong and the game devolves into corner carries into set play/vortex.
There's a reason that reversals need to be strong, yet at the same time difficult to pull off. You want people to have that option easily get people off their backs on oki, yet at the same tiem, you don't want something that totally slows the game down and resets it to neutral on knockdown.
Everything in the game has everything to do with execution until they find some way to jam a peripheral into your brain to allow you to perform the all tge commands without the middle management of your precious Execution Barrier getting in the way of me doing something I intended to do.
The part in bold is true.... funny how you can spot a problem with an input you might find too hard to perform.... but suddenly become blind to that problem when it means losing your precious Fireball Traps. Its tha very double standard that I have a problem.....
I just want intuitive inputs and designs.... I don't know how you're going to implement a multi speed special attack at all but thats no excuse to not atleast explore other methods don't work.... if charges don't work then have a dedicate Firebal button with differen't commands for fireballs of different speeds and Types.... then you can have arching fire balls and wavy fireballs in any unoccupied input motions to add to your precious complexity if you so desire.
Then all you're doing is complicating the control scheme even more, which again also adds to execution. I mean, on top of 6 normal attack buttons, you're now adding another set of buttons just for moves.
And thats good for the people who play those characters..... and have the execution to use the character that make it to the top Tier.
But don't confuse a game being "Tournament Viable" as a game being well designed and balanced... if only 4 of the many characters are Tournament Viable then thats a shitty tournament.... because its a shitty game..... in that case you might awell have a Dark Souls tournament because hey.... only 10 of the 100 builds are PvP viable. But even that is better.... theres no Physical Executio Barrier.... but thats only because the game is completely devoid of any skillful play.
Because, as Seth's article stated. You don't really want a balanced game since, considering as he stated, most fighting game characters "lack the complexity of a set of chessmen" (which itself isn't a good example seeing as chess in unbalanced favoring white).
Most attempts at balance end up sacrificing variety. You lose out in terms of interesting match ups and playstyles in an effort to balance. Would you really be content in playing a game where more characters were playable at the cost of those characters not actually being varied and unique. Where everyone just had the same versions of the same shitty normals and specials? I wouldn't.
But most importantly its a big fat massive Cop Out whenever people bring out The Meta Game and The Tier List becausing Developers keep using it as an excuse to not fix their games.... yes... FIX....because it is broken. And by players who conveniently are not afftected by it the negative side of the matchups and exploits.....and since we're in the habbit of linking things instead of explaining them....
Here you go.
Even Sirlin acknowledges the fact that tiers exist (and come on, he's an acknowledged "tier whore" who ran the best characters in some of the games he played, and also a known counter picker).
He never states that characters should be in the same tier, however what we refer as "viable" characters are more often then not those that only fall into "top tier". Very rarely do we ever see true "god tier" characters. In the case of Street Fighter, the only true example of this being Akume in Super Turbo and Sirlin's own HD Remix.
Don't confuse me wanting to focus an strategy alone as me saying I want a turn based game.... Time and Space do add extra deep and layers on top of a strategy its one of the best parts about Real Time Fighting Games that character I'm currently maining special nuances to their moves that you just can't replicated in a turn based enviroment...... I want to say execution doesn't play a role in that vision but his Article Points out that it does.... I think its lazy but nothing he said goes torward excluding people from experiencing high level play with more intuitive input execution.....
You on the other insist that these inputs should be difficult to execute to deliberatey cause players to screw up...... to give you some idea of how flawed and wrong your argument is. Go to any competitive activity and propose that that very same logic and bath in the awkward "is this guys serious" looks people are going to give you because that argument doesn't make sense at all...... you're not going to convince the Football Association that randomly turning on the sprinklers in the middle of a match to deliberately increases the chsnces of making the athletes slip and miss crucial tackles and scores. Go to the Tennis association and see if they don't laugh in face when you propose you oild up the handles on the tennis Rackets and have the Net move up and down and back and forth randomly when they play.
I never said that execution should be arbitrarily difficult. I just stated that inputs do serve certain purposes, one was which to allow for a certain amount of risk when pulling them off.
Heck, anyone who knows me knows that I've actually posted a few things on my regarding the
problems with having a high entry-level execution barrier as well as the
issues with the concept of using execution for balancing.
The problem here is that you see to be dismissing the concept of execution in itself, despite the fact, as I've pointed out, that it does serve a purpose in a fighting games competitive ecosystem. I myself have argued against stuff like 720 command motions and SNK pretzel motions, but that's it, the simpler motions sch as quarter circles, DP motions and sonic boom charge motions all have their place, outside of purely making stuff "hard to do".
Also, the water sprinkler analogy is wrong because in your example it's random and unable to be controlled by the player. A special move input is more like actually learning how to kick properly to get a goal in futbol. It's something you can practice against, whereas water sprinklers coming on are a true random occurence.
So to address what seems to be main point of your argument:
EASY INPUTS DON'T SOLVE GAMES.... they don't guarantee damage. all they promiss is the move is guaranteed to come out when you make it come out.
Or can you back that up and prove that a game has been solved by easy inputs ?
Have I not already mentioned Persona 4 Arena. The whole reversal/DP portion of the game is, for all intents and purposes, solved. Once you put someone in a situation where they should reversal, then they just will thanks to 2 button reversals. The combined mental and physical focus required for it is so low that they can just do it. It comes to the point where in those situations, the knocked down opponent actually controls the pace of the match, which is fundamentally wrong. Compare it to something where you're required a dragon punch or flash kick motion, the mental and physical concentration required is higher, meaning that you can't just throw it out willy nilly and actually need to consider if you can/should at that specific moment.
1) Hold, back up, block, or crush. They aren't powerful at all, just a panic button. I will never understand the complaints about wakeup kicks. They can only do a wild kick while you have so many ways to respond to it.
The issue is that they give the control of the match back to the knocked down player, the one playing ukemi, not the attacking playing okizeme. Knocking down should give the attacking player a positional advantage, not allow the downed player to reset. It's like the P4 example with the guaranteed reversals.
I mean, not saying that the game should be like MKX, where getting knocked down is death. But it should put the initiative squarely in the hands of the attacking player.
.... shes all kinds of awesome.
