66L = Sol Far Slash is accurate in the literal sense that it's a forward advancing +2 on block mid.

@acemaison2834

6 ай бұрын

Was gonna type it but u hit the nail so appreciate it

@laffy7204

6 ай бұрын

The thing about 66l is that not everyone gets a good reward off of it hit or block, so for some it's not oppressive at all

@acemaison2834

6 ай бұрын

@@laffy7204 oh no all of them are + but some don’t get follow ups . The main issues is some characters straight up abuse it

@laffy7204

6 ай бұрын

@@acemaison2834 I played Ferry and the way she works with dash attack terrible. It whiffs over Charlotte, the standing light is 8 frames so it would trade with lights after a dash attack constantly, and 66L won't combo into anything in like half of it's range unless it's counter-hit

@acemaison2834

6 ай бұрын

@@laffy7204 those that can abuse it need to be touched regardless. The minority is not the issue here

Just bringing this up because I actually know the guy who made that tweet. He never meant to claim that one was worse than the other, and in fact he actually loves that these system wide aggression-enabling mechanics. All he really wanted to say was he was noticing that game devs were moving their focus away from the SF4/5 and early Strive era of resetting things to neutral and were now intentionally making offense(Unga) better.

@thatguy8841

5 ай бұрын

Cool, tell him i, some random guy on the internet, like his videos

One thing I don't see many people bring up in modern fighting games that I think contributes to this is how big the characters are now. Games like SF6 and Strive either have bigger character models or are more zoomed in then their predecessors so you have less screen space to cover. One of the things I noticed when picking up Blazblue with friends a couple years ago was how it felt like that game uses the HD widescreen space to actually give you more screen to move around in vs the 4:3 that older GG had before Xrd. In Strive you're like in range of at least one button from a lot of the cast at round start. I felt the same with DNF when I played it where I just didnt feel like I had any room to move around cause the game was so zoomed in and forcing us together.

@josephhu5186

6 ай бұрын

I think that has to do with the movement mechanics. For a slow and grounded game like SF, zooming in make sense. For games like older GG and Blazblue where everyone is flying around in light speed, the screen needs to be zoomed out a bit. I think what you’re saying is that modern games tend to be slower and more grounded

@theSHELFables

6 ай бұрын

@@josephhu5186 specifically talking about the screen space. If you look at more grounded older fighters like Last Blade or SF Alpha 2, you have smaller characters and more room to move around, even with the 4:3 screen space.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

It usually comes up at the beginning of a game, it was discussed when Xrd, Type Lumina and Strive all came out.

@Frostile

6 ай бұрын

​@theSHELFables No? The characters take up roughly the same amount of screen space based on the size of the screen. The older games screens are smaller overall the game looks more squished. But I literally just looked up sf alpha 2 and it's the same character to screen ratio as sf6 and Strive. Most of the clips LK showed the characters take up the same amount of space the overall screen is just bigger due to resolution.

I definitely feel like the push back against "neutral skips" is how they have become more and more obviously incorporated into system mechanics. Superdash, 66L, etc are obvious even to newer players as a "get in" tool. B/C of that, and how good they are, and their application across an entire cast, they get used a lot. I think this makes people who play the games that are not good at dealing with "neutral skips" think that the game is "scrubby" because they "aren't playing the right way" or the opponent is "abusing a broken mechanic" rather than realizing THEY need to improve to do deal with them (better positioning in neutral, knowing when the opponent will use such a move, etc.) Not to paint with a broad brush, but I feel from personal experience and seeing discourse online that low to mid-level players tend to look externally for reasons why they are losing (BS character or system mechanic) rather than internally (my neutral needs work, I need to lab this match up, etc). "Neutral Skips" feel oppressive when you can't fight them, and thus become an easy scapegoat to complain about when you struggle. It is a lot easier to whine online to nerf 66L than it is to improve at the game.

these videos where you dive into a subject are cool, the way you explain your thought processes is really interesting to hear

Honestly, I think people aren't used to neutrals that go beyond "using their proyectile and/or their low safe poke".

Id love for you and Sajam to do a video on this concept. Lotta things to talk about.

Everyone talks about the system mechanics added, but part of the problem is that character specific tech has been gradually watered down. It's not just that there are unga mechanics, other win conditions have been subtly nerfed. The fact that everyone is more balanced on paper is a direct consequence of this, and arguably makes the differences in overall character power less of a factor when it comes to character choice. The more unique characters essentially become tokens that have no significant place in the meta. A good example of this would grapplers. Sure the tier gap is way greater in older games, but F tiers like Hugo still saw competitive use and success. And not just from die-hard grappler mains like Snake Eyes or Itazan, players like Infiltration and Tokido consistently used grapplers as counter-picks (both used Hugo in SF4 at times), and pretty much any player worth their salt practiced against Zangief. Nowadays grapplers are arguably better overall but have almost no place in the broader meta. Command grabs have gradually gotten slower and more damaging to the point where people look at you funny if you refer to them as a defensive option. And this is sort of a necessary evil to keep the game "balanced". When the game is designed around polarizing approach options you can't really have a character with a 2 frame command grab. Personally this is my issue, it feels like the win conditions aren't as balanced as the characters themselves, so it feels like you're choosing between top tiers, or characters who ultimately do the same things but worse, or with extra steps. And I do think older games were a bit better about this.

So a couple years ago, you made some videos about tier lists and the reason why we people use S/A/B/C vs A/B/C/D for ranking, etc. and you were kind of enough to make another video explaining the difference when I asked you about that. This video actually sheds a lot of light on those previous topics because the system mechanics being stronger, does make characters "Less bad" overall. I do think this kind of stuff is a double-edged sword, or as you put it, picking poison. It feels like shit when a game has 25 characters and only 6 of them are good cause of privileged abilities they were designed with and It also feels like shit when every character feels the same cause the privilege is a system mechanic. I do think GG is probably the closest to finding this balance because having a "specific type" of wild assault for specific characters is unique, and uniqueness is an aspect of "Player expression" that people are looking for. But anyway, thanks for the video, great job LK!

@user-wl9yj8gz6f

6 ай бұрын

Sorry for the bother, could you tell me the title of the video you are talking about?

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

@@user-wl9yj8gz6f iirc it was something like "how to read a tier list" or "the truth about tier lists"

@user-wl9yj8gz6f

6 ай бұрын

@@LordKnightfgc Thanks!

@Komatik_

5 ай бұрын

I think KOF has hit on a good spot there, too. Even though every KOF character fundamentally plays the hop-based neutral game and in essence runs the same game plan, it doesn't feel dully homogenizing the same way these newer "fun buttons" do. I guess partly because it doesn't feel tacked on, and is more a consequence of the game's overall movement system than a tacked on action starter. Anime airdashes accomplish the same - they give the game a lot of life, and eg. IAD buttons essentially do what modern fun buttons do. Yet they somehow feel a lot less deadening for one reason or another.

13:58 This question makes me think. Do system mechanics determine how important neutral is in a game, or do individual chars determine this? Also, you said dragon rush was your most disliked dbfz mechanic years ago.

@user-dq9lo9uo5e

6 ай бұрын

Is your neutral good because of the system mechanics, or are the system mechanics why your neutral is good?

@dangbruhskyy

6 ай бұрын

only true answer to any questions about any fighting games, is hit them with another question

@orangejuiceow5420

6 ай бұрын

are you sure it wasnt super dash, and not dragon rush= why would he hate a grab

@SH1NK1R01

6 ай бұрын

He did say that but his argument wasn’t that all neutral skips are great and good or even to advocate for their existence in general. All he was doing was contesting the idea that they are some knew thing that is the sign of some major change in game design philosophy. They have always existed and no matter how far back you go you’ll find them.

66L isn't a neutral skip at all, it's just an incredibly strong poke. Now something like Seox's ultimate dive, that's a genuine neutral skip. You just whip that shit out and you're in nearly regardless of what your opponent did, and if it hits them you also get like 50-60%. There's very little that can actually be done about the move. It's invuln and fast. If you spot dodge it, he can punish. If you block it, he's pretty safe, usually only like -2 or so. You can react to fireballs and whiffs with it which I *guess* isn't a neutral skip as much as it is just a very strong universal whiff punish you can do if you see your opponent's sprite twitch. It's a contender for the strongest single move in the game, which has other slam dunks like Nier 623H and Zeta j623U and Soriz 236U. Most of the moves called neutral skips still involve winning neutral through fairly honest (if strong) means. There's definitely exceptions. Personally I think the whole push for complaining about them is just a mid-level zoner player psyop.

@HellecticMojo

6 ай бұрын

Zoner players are indeed cowards. *Yoga teleports away*

@freehatespeech6804

6 ай бұрын

Running light in Granblue is closer to short jump CD in KoF than it is to some shit like +R Kliff S bellowing roar FRC. You win neutral if it's blocked, but it's not strong enough to just win neutral nigh automatically.

@MH3Raiser

6 ай бұрын

It literally is a neutral skip. On hit it gets you a combo, on block it gets you plus frames. It's literally identical to Drive Rush, only it's meterless.

@bahablastfreeze8872

6 ай бұрын

@@MH3Raiser I think their point is that there is a threshold of counterplay that 66L has, that Seox U.Dive doesnt have. We use the term neutral skips loosely, but I think I'd err on the side of the Op's definition here.

@MH3Raiser

6 ай бұрын

@bahablastfreeze8872 So a neutral skip must be invulnerable then? Or must cross a certain distance? I think that's kind of a sketchy way to stretch the definition don't you, what makes something a 'genuine' neutral skip and what makes it a 'fake' neutral skip anyhow? Are drive rush or May's dolphin not neutral skips because they don't go full screen or have invuln? Yeah, this doesn't seem to work man.

I’m actually glad you mentioned the system mechanic emphasis. I was having this exact discussion with a friend like a week or so ago about how modern fgs actually have significantly less “dumpster” tier characters. And the worst character in a roster can still beat a top tier even if it’s an uphill battle. You will struggle to find a 9-1 or 10-0 matchup in any modern game. And it’s largely due to the fact that devs have started to place more of the character power in shared system mechanics. If the system mechanic is strong then that low tier now has a forced floor of how bad they can be because they can’t be weaker then the system itself is. If you have no meterless reversal in granblue you still have guard cancel for example. Which means your defense is immediately better than it would be if that didn’t exist.

One thing I kinda want to see with fg in the future is try to innovate on defensive mechanics/gameplay. Not saying there is, but is there a way to make defensive really fun? Definitely one big reason for the push with aggressive gameplay is because it’s just plain fun. So I wonder if defense can be somehow be incentivized in terms of fun factor. Maybe the risk gauge in guilty gear not only increases reduces scaling to you, but does so the other way, or at least allows for a ex version of your first move that hits. Or maybe more 2D fighters could somehow implement that partry move in tekken (that bounces the opponent on the ground) as a universal mechanic for characters. I have no clue. But I would be interested if people attempted to figure out a solution.

I like the point you made about about 6 out of 25 being viable vs 18 out of 25 viable but you have to be careful with using system mechanics to prop characters up because its really easy to end up with s1-s2 dragonball where it didnt matter that the bottom tier was still only A- cause they ended up being near identical to the top tiers just with worse buttons and anything unique about them either sucking to high heaven (nappa, freeza, ginyu) or near enough not existing (Black, Tien, Trunks). Games have been pretty good about not letting that happen lately but Vanilla GBVS and Vanilla Strive still had some issues with that. Love the videos, you've always had the most consistant takes in FGs around, hope your 2024 goes well!

Every old fighting game i played felt way more guerilla than modern games

The stronger offense becomes the more important defence will be so it evens out by testing your mettle to adapt.

For granblue, I wouldn't say 66L is a "neutral skip" but it's moreso than raging chain. Raging chain is more of a combo extension while 66L is a strong to oppressive pressure tool that's almost always plus.

@Zevox87

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, I assume that guy must not have know what Raging Chain is, because it's strictly a combo extension tool. Maybe he meant to say Raging Strike, the guard break mechanic RC combos from, but while technically an aggressive mechanic, that's very reactable.

GBFVR 66L is not quite neutral skip cause there is a special property where there is a bigger delay to walk forward than to jump, so that means linking 66L into itself is impossible

@pedromoniz4224

6 ай бұрын

+2 on block and if you hit you link into cl.L not itself. Thats why they called it the sol f.S. You suddently get put into a disadvantageous position from half screen that also pushed you back into the wall.

would you say that there are threshholds of game pace that tend to incline people more towards saying which games do and do not have "true neutral"?

@bluejay7058

6 ай бұрын

I’d say this is a more informed take. Neutral is almost always relative to both system mechanics and character tools. Ie: Street Fighter neutral is just different than Guilty gear neutral, and therefore which tools are skips would be different too

@HellecticMojo

6 ай бұрын

I've only ever seen people not whinge about lack of neutral until the game slows down to Samsho level of slow and comboless.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

yes for sure

I would like to see you go over what changed in the patches since you´ve stopped playing DBFZ with someone who still competes and see what aspects you enjoy. Maybe when rollback finally has a real release?

more honest video than some i've seen about this even though I still don't really agree with you at least you're having the conversation. I struggle to enjoy fighting games of the last like six years with the exception of Vanilla GBVS for this reason, and then the sequel goes and joins the crowds of aggressive system mechanics and neutral skips blah blah dominating the game. So I'm pretty unhappy.

Good for you to point out that the dude wrongly spoke about raging chain instead of 66L, this comes to show that he doesnt even know about the interactions in game of that button.

The actual truth is that the average player is so SO much better than even 10 years ago and a game being played at a casual or mid level is very different to the game being played at higher levels. Players are discovering what fighting games have always been (neutral skip, oki, 50/50’s, aggression heavily rewarded) and are missing the more "fun" flow of the games they used to play at a lower level. Combined with yes, a more even spread of character balance because of the current trend of homogenising mechanics in all the main games that come out these days and you get this discourse.

Im generally not a fan of all these kinds of mechanics and would rather they be tied to specific characters in a way to give everyone more unique tools and gameplans from each other. but still i wouldn't mind them so much if it were only in one or two games or if they are better balanced. To take superdash in consideration, there's a bit more of a risk reward system behind it. in most neutral situations a superdash can be easily countered with an assist or antiair and be punished with a full combo's damage. while it does bring you close, it alone doesn't put you in an advantageous position. in order to do that you need to use another resource. and then for combos, it has use as a combo extender, but you only really get one superdash for such, unless you use a very specific combo to rejump which will take time to learn. Drive rush in comparison has the risk reward very lopsided in favor of the attacker. in neutral it takes a fraction of a resource that quickly and passively replenishes, lets you get in from around mid screen quickly, and leaves you in prime position to mix up/combo or be at an advantage on block. you can try to stuff it but for the most part, that situation has to be a read with how fast drive rush is and how quickly it can be acted out of, combined with every other option from the opponent you may be watching for. And I've heard the pause drive rush causes can eat inputs. In advantage you can easily drive rush multiple times to extend combos and further push combo carry. and it easily lets you get ontop of the opponent on wakeup. The reward you get from drive rush is so great and the risk for using such is so little, i think it makes the mid range one of the best places to be in the game regardless of character or playstyle. because at that range anyone can either counterpoke into a full combo's damage with corner carry and oki and/or use drive rush to dash in from outside most poking ranges to either mixup/start a combo or be plus on block.

Id be curious to hear your take on modern fighting game sequels. It feels like we are getting a lot of 1.5quels with Tekken 8, Granblue R, UNI 2, and even Smash Ultimate. There are a lot of advantages towards taking that kind of route versus a complete overhaul like sf6 and strive.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

Good point. I would say Tekken 8 is an actual new entry, but there's nothing wrong with the sequels we've been getting. They get to market them as new games + add new features + balance existing chars + better netcode. Win for the people who were invested in the previous version for sure. In general the bigger releases will be actual new games though imo

+R certainly has pretty good system mechanics but the character power is high enough that 90-95% of the cast is tournament viable. if you just give characters actually strong, unique tools that are unique to them i believe you can create a balanced game without needing strong universal mechanics

@maxrusty3596

6 ай бұрын

Imagine that....and not homogenzing everyone and making system mechanics the biggest thing. Mayb some actual fun could be found.

@HellecticMojo

6 ай бұрын

@@maxrusty3596 Imagine making a game only fun for people that played it for 10 years straight. Oh wait, I don't have to imagine, because that's what GG was.

@freehatespeech6804

6 ай бұрын

@@maxrusty3596 System mechanics are interesting if they can be used in multiple ways, like KoF 98 UMFE quick max. You can activate it raw, or when putting the opponent in hit / blockstop with a non projectile move. This makes your character skip hitstop and go straight to recovery, while your opponent is still in hitstop. You can use it for combos, frame traps, safety on block, mixups, setups, or just activate it as soon as safely possible to increase your poke damage. You can sit on it waiting for the perfect moment to use it, or use it as soon as possible, and if you use it quickly, you can keep it for the passive buff, or get rid of it so you can activate it again.

@niceboy5559

6 ай бұрын

​@@HellecticMojokinda of disagree since +r is still fun even if you're not that good as long as you play people at your skill level imo

@maxrusty3596

6 ай бұрын

@@HellecticMojo I just disagree that it was only fun for long time players. See u bought what they were selling. Making u believe that +r and XRD wasnt fun for new players because thats when i started. I thought all the cool stuff ppl were doing was sick and i wanted to learn it. And they were games it felt like no matter who u play if u put in enough time u can win. Im still relatively new to the scene you could say. And ive hated the design philosphy of strive its so obviously a lazy cash grab that it makes me sick. I could go into depth but i wont. Point is it doesnt have to be one or the other. A good game is a good game. And Strive is utter trash and i know cuz i play everyday cuz i get that urge to play a fighting game. And i win and get celestial easily every month but my god i notice the flaws too cuz im not a biased fanboy.

I don't always agree with LK's opinions on everything, but the guy is a true scholar. If you want to know what (good) game designers sound like, this is what they sound like. I don't know if he's consulting with anybody on things, but he sure sounds like he should do that or consider hopping over to the development side. You don't get this from all influencers or pro competitors, but LK definitely has the stuff. Anyway, never mind me, I just thought this was worth noting.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

I don't think I should ever make a fighting game lmao, but thank you for the compliment! EDIT: all the stuff I talk about on here is a result from talking to people and reviewing my own play

I definitely dont like that these mechanics are universal. It basically leads to the meta of the game just devolving into who can abuse the mechanics the most. Sf6, Strive, and now granblue all have the top tiers seperated because of how much better they abuse the new mechanics compared to the rest of the cast.

since we're in the age of patches, I think the 6-good-character hypothetical gains equity. It's a lot easier to bring that 6 up to 18 through patches based around a meta that develops, rather than having to reinvent a lot of wheels to differentiate characters in modern games. I feel like White Wild Assault kinda illustrates my point here. although the real answer kinda lies in what feels better as a playerbase, basically vibes. Maybe 18 samey characters feel better than a character you really like being shit for 6month to 1 year.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

Yeah for sure. I didn't mention it since it didn't really fit in this video, but at least in my experience playing fg competitively, people saying that the characters "all play the same" is usually a result of them not really exploring chars, wanting more blatant unique tools, or tend to play unique chars (as in, on launch they will say the chars all play the same, but later a char gets added that is unique enough for them).

Has LK made a video on balancing around plus frames vs balancing around minus frames? I know he's mentioned it a bunch and I'm super curious to dig into that.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

Yea, around when Strive came out. kzread.info/dash/bejne/mn6LkqWInbnAlbQ.htmlsi=q1LfPBcVBslZLa8c

On a system mechanic level, I'd rather everyone have some way of getting in as opposed to being locked into one type of playstyle because that's how they were made to be. As crazy as some characters neutral is, calling it the "age of unga" is kinda dramatic. You still have to do the right thing at the right time, or you can just get mashed on and blow up. It makes the game easier (and honestly a little scrubbier at times), for some players, but it's not exactly free neutral either. All in all, skill issue lmao Also, I felt that - 7:55 I believe in the 2B supremecy

While I think "neutral skip" is way too negative as a name, LK's tweet really highlighted that despite moves like this existing for ages, we probably should have a name for these kinds of moves Like it is so much easier to say "this move is a neutral skip" than saying "this move is relatively fast and safe, can be used at mid to long range, is hard to deal with and starts your offense"

I honestly like going unga in fighting games like KOF and VSav, but in both of those cases, they have MANY meterless mechanics that facilitate going unga. SF6 still feels like traditional SF, except this one mechanic that almost invalidates traditional SF play - except its metered, so it can't be done all the time, so it feels like juggling two different types of games. And unlike Claw or Yun, where you could mentally prepare yourself for that eventual transition into another style of play, EVERYONE has it to some degree, so the table can be flipped on you at any moment, adding to the mental stack. But yeah this is an exclusively Street Fighter problem. No one really complains about the lack of neutral in other fighting games because for all intents and purposes, it barely exists after the first month or so of the game being out.

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

I meaaaaaaaaaaaan I wouldn't say it is just a SF problem lol

66L is definitely sol far slash lol. There are lots of chars that have yolo ultimate skills that skip neutral though.

@danielzavala3746

6 ай бұрын

Is sols far slash still good? I havent played since gold lewis came out.

@Sparda51

6 ай бұрын

@@danielzavala3746 it’s good but not as good as before.

I wonder if part of the problem people have with "neutral skip mechanics" is specifically because they are system mechanics. "Neutral skips" as system mechanics I think creates a game where matchups are played more similarly than they would be without the system mechanic, and if all of a game's neutral skips are character mechanics instead of system mechanics then it creates a more diverse set of matchups where some characters can "skip" neutral while other characters have to more honestly win neutral. That said, I play a lot more platform fighters than traditional fighting games, where neutral skips are extremely rare as even character mechanics, let alone system mechanics. No modern platform fighter I know of has them, and system mechanics usually deepen the neutral interactions more than they allow you to skip neutral (if the system mechanic is useful in neutral at all, there are some like hitfalling in Rivals of Aether that's just useful for the punish game).

How about a video talking about defensive mechanics in fighting games and which ones are your favorites?

honestly something like wild assault is really more like a tatsu which uses meter

I play Axl in Strive and my netuarl involves annoying my opponent with my long chains lol

I feel like, if possible, offensive system mechanics should interact with what your character already does. RC is super cool because of that. For example how Pot in Xrd can use ICPM, RC it and maintain the momentum to fling himself across the screen. A system mechanic that's just a big forward punch is just not very interesting. If the choice is between letting everyone have the punch or leaving any slower character in the dust then I'll take the punch I guess, but I'd prefer they just adjust the characters themselves.

@pian-0g445

6 ай бұрын

While not useful at higher levels, before Pot got that jet move in strive, seeing him jump in the air and RC dash into me was terrifying at first. I love RC.

This video was brought to you with our friend(s) support over at The Fighting Game Glossary, an online glossary that has nearly every definition of various fighting game terms, acronyms and concepts. Thanks for supporting us, now on with the rest of the video

one thing that neutral skips do is that they make players that like to play defensive forced to play offensive so now everyone in the game play offensive.

Your opinion is more or less where I’ve landed on after many introspective discussions with friends. People point out things they don’t like about new games and blame it on it being “new game, developers are bad” when a lot of these features or mechanics have been prevalent element of a lot of beloved old games.

Realistically i think the problem with recent fighting games is that its getting too fast like , one min its normal fundies/footsies and next the other guy is layed out on floor with half or more health left . As for neutral skips i think the solution to them is simple and that to not make it so it can award dmg above the scale of 60% percent because any higher is kinda crazy but thats subjective . EIther way the tweet is not all the way wrong with the shift of crazier moves but its wrong to assume that old games didnt have their own brand of bs bck in the day just cause new day stuff is flasher/craizer .

its not the addition of offensive mechanics that is the issue. its the removal of defensive mechanics. aka invincible backdash not being in new games. thats just one example

Is it too much to ask for 12ish unique strong characters?

I feel like something a lot of people forget in the discourse of "Neutral Skips" is that Jump Ins are neutral skips as well. They're counterable, yes, but neutral skips nonetheless. They've been a thing since the first Street Fighter. It isn't the skips that are the issue, it's how universal they are, and how they are designed. I honestly am not a fan of mechanics like drive rush that let you get in for free on any character(But I also don't like combo extension mechanics like FADC's so I might just be in the minority in my opinion) and I would prefer each character having their own options for getting in and for how they approach the game. The design of fighting games should go back to characters having unique tools to deal with situations. It's more fun that way and truly makes your character more interesting. Plus I wanna see grapplers actually focus on grappling rather than have a horrid moveset with a single command grab that does some damage. You don't really get any engagement with the core of grapplers in that moveset style, which is throwing. I wanna see more grapplers like Abel again where they have mixups with grabs and strikes rather than highs and lows.

@harrylane4

6 ай бұрын

So what you’re saying is we should ban jumping

@JakeTheJay

6 ай бұрын

@@harrylane4 No. I mentioned that Jumps are balanced. It isn't like drive rush where it's difficult to counter it. It isn't just one factor that lead me to my opinion on drive rush. Drive Rush is universal, and poorly designed at the same time. That is the main issue. It's not just one, it's both.

Very good nuanced take as usual. You always do a great job presenting your points and providing examples without disregarding other opinions as invalid. I've played fighting games for just as long as anyone and I honestly think it's funny how rose tinted people get about older games. There was always grimy shit, neutral skips, cheap moves etc. May not have been every character, but character select has always been a universal mechanic. There are valid arguments to be made about having universal mechanics that are too strong, how they homogenize or simplify gameplay etc. but as you said pick your poison, you want a balanced roster, then you are going to have to have some strong universal options to assist with that balancing. I also think that it's important to remember, many things can be good in moderation but a problem in excess. I don't think SF6 is excessively homogenized or simplified, and it's certainly not excessively unga bunga, the best strategy at all but the top level is still defensive safe play (ymmv I don't really play at lower levels but I've seen how much they hang themselves). And at the top it comes down to the player as always, some of them play aggro others play super safe, both can work.

@TheLeroy125

6 ай бұрын

the rose tinted glasses and older games thing isn't exclusive to just fighting games. I grew up playing a lot of FPS games (q3a, original cs, unreal etc) and I always tell my cousins (who are 10-15 years younger) that now is the golden age of FPS games, you get em basically all f2p, servers are offered by the game itself not 3rd parties. Ye there's battlepasses and people charging you money for new skins and characters and everything's another BR or cs rip off. I keep telling em all those things are valid, but we didn't even get copies, we had a game come out you'd pay top dollar for and if it didn't do well there would be no 3rd party servers available and no support and your money was gone. There would never be any new skins, or new characters period end of story. I feel the FGC is like that too. a new game comes out and they swear high and low about how it used to be better and fairer etc etc. go another 6 or 7 years down the line with a few new releases and now everyone's reminiscing about how that game they cried bout those years ago was so good like they've forgotten all the bullshit they cried about and this new one is just so unfair and bad.

granblue has 66L but it also has brave counter that is very strong, while I do not like 66L being so "samey" on all characters I feel like accusing a game that has a "forced return to neutral" button to not have neutral is a bit weird. And it's not like 66L has no counterplay, like, try to dash L at cag with her traps or zooey doing a laser beam at you, it will probably not go well. Of note is that a lot of the ultimate skills also stuff sprinting very hard so while 66L is very strong at round start, once some meter has built up it's a lot more difficult to use (and if you expect to hit you can use the ultimate skills very liberaly considering the meter refund mechanic). Don't get me wrong 66L is very strong but there is a lot going on in neutral still.

This is not the Unga age... its the ACCESIBILITY AGE.... make def options (because defending will always be harder) worse and make easier ways to get in (on a mechanic level so that Anyone can do it, ergo homogenizing) for lower level players to "feel" they can/are as good as more veteran players.... This is why although the competition has increased, U can still argue old players/games have higher difficulties/skill levels, because the Devs weren't holding Ur hands... Not to mention (just as LK mentioned at 8:45) other series tend to imitate SF to some degree, which is why Strive was over simplified.... Some people wouldn't have gotten into Fighting Games if devs weren't carrying them to begin with compared to past generations

I think "neutral skips" get complained about because as LK mentioned many high and mid level players struggle at defense and the premise of a neutral skip is that it allows one player to move to offense quickly, and feeling safe at midrange then suddenly getting dived on and dunked feels bad. Modern games are pretty good at providing universal defensive mechanics so universal offensive mechanics don't seem unreasonable to me in general, though an individual system could always be over/under tuned in practice

@dangbruhskyy

6 ай бұрын

I think complaining about a universal mechanic in any game you're choosing to play, is scrub behavior tbh.. if it's something people see as "beneath them" , i.e doesn't offer me a reward, but it offers you a reward If youre good enough to win without the tool, you're good enough to jus pick up the fuggin tool and win too. If that tool is exploiting your bad defense, it's not the tools fault It's bad defense Lolol. I don't mean you literally btw n at the end of the day it'll be case by case basis imo for what constitutes worth complaining about. Pretty interesting point you made that mechanics generally lending themselves to offense. its easiest approach for broader appeal, but I personally love that they kinda clean up those spaghetti noodle moments that can happen in high stress matches Lol it's jus more hype spectator experience. I believe there's def room to be explored for defense mechanics, like spot dodge, or a burst. Smash to me is made much more hype just by shielding alone. There's no excuse to be had, or way to be scrubbed out if there's inherently always a reality you should've just shielded that shit. I know it's obviously different for traditional fighters, but like I said I think there's room to be explored n I hope it is cause effective RPS is what makes victories feel earned. Just adding more rock to the rock papers scissors will definitely not be long term solution

I feel like people complaining about "neutral skips" are just folks that have drunk the Street Fighter fanboy koolaid that midrange footsies is somehow the only great, important part of fighting games, and now get offended by whatever brings that phase of the game to an end. I swear if the term had existed when early Marvel or anime fighters were coming out people would be complaining IAD was a neutral skip because it's harder to anti-air on reaction than a basic jump-in and lets you start offense on block.

66L being "akin to Sol f.S" is only really true if you take it fully literally, it also exists in a game where the majority of characters have 8-9f fully-safe pokes that convert into (upwards of) 4.5k damage, so you aren't quite as free to throw it out in midscreen as in Strive where many of the "good" pokes are >2f slower and mostly relegated to characters like Ram or Ky that are specialized in that regard. It's like if every character had Sol f.S and MOST characters had (something like) Johnny's f.S as well. It's also in a game where most characters have a meterless reversal and ALL characters have a metered reversal, AND meter gain is EXTREMELY cranked, so it's not even remotely as "free". Idk, it's a "technically true" comparison but it completely misses the broader context of the game TBH

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

Yeah after reading through comments, fair enough. Probably fair to say GBVSR doesn't have a universal neutral mechanic at all really. I was just grasping for straws because I knew for sure what he listed was not for neutral lol

can you skip neutral if everyone can neutral skip

GoatKnight speaking logic once again

Homies who complain about neutral are the same homies that pick the most technical combo heavy 40hit combo in the corner lab rat character and not just Katalina because they're wonderbread.

I thought if the whole recent trend in games differently. In older games, character power level was considered higher as offense was generally stronger. In most modern games, your oki isn’t that strong in comparison and you are forced to return to neutral more often. Because of this, game devs have been increasing the power of universal neutral options. It seems more like a shift in where the power is to me. 66L is similar to a weaker Sol fS. It’s +2 and advancing but there isn’t a major threat unless you are in the proximity range for cM. Unlike Sol’s fS where he could just gatling 5HS after and delete you for challenging with a light button.

@Komatik_

5 ай бұрын

Nier can link tip range 66L into 2M and delete you 🗡😿

The mythical golden age of footsies come up

"Ah yes, make every character a shoto with the same moves but different textures so everything is a mirrormatch. That's bound to be fun." People don't think before they tweet.

@sibami12

6 ай бұрын

Footsies (the game) is pretty fun ngl

get sajam for the neutral skip part 2

❤

Jm crofts neutral skips collab ????

I wouldn’t call any of these neutral skip because there are ways to counter them. Just grab the white wild assault and 2H the super dash if you know it’s coming. A real neutral skip would be one you can’t do anything about it even if you know it’s coming.

I think it would be more interesting to consider how fighting games have been leaving the era of the comeback mechanic

If its fair to spam projectiles all match and run when its boring and annoying both to watch and play against then its just as fair to have nuetral skips. I play gief so i dont get any but I totally get their place in the games structure and it isnt near as bad a problem as i think zoners are. I would rather have a fast paced game with both players in eachothers faces all day than to watch people trade fireballs or watch one person have to slowly block and get in on 15 spammed projectiles.

It’s 100% true that the system mechanics are a big enabler. You had people playing the wackest character in Xrd and still making it work with yrc

FGC community argues more than they actually play the games they argue about.

66L being Sol fS is correct meaning not really a neutral skip since youre kinda just flinging your body at them

Having tier diversity hasnt been bad historically and I prefer the style of walking back and forth that is getting more and more difficult. The 🤔tweet looked more like poisoning the well than talking about system mechanics.

7:43 BEDMAN MENTIONED!!!! LIKE IF YOU'RE A REAL BEDHEAD THAT GIVES OUT MAJOR BEDHEAD TO YOUR OPPONENTS!!!!

so your proposal is that these aggressive mechanics that skip neutral are needed because without it the characters with the best neutral will dominate ? that really makes no sense. to take that approach you would have to concede to the point that EVERY SINGLE FIGHTING GAME before this gen had awful balance... which is just false. SF4 is my go to where every character can compete. i can't really even think of many bad characters outside of dan and deejay, dan for being a joke character and deejay for an awful change that capcom didn't think through.... in a game with 40 characters that's pretty good no neutral skipping universal mechanic needed. infact i'd argue that the opposite would happen with these modern mechanics. like sure older games would go to D tier for bad characters while new games only really go to B tier but because the entire game is focused around how they use the mechanics for neutral rather than how their neutral is.... why would you play the B tier characters ? as you stated the universal mechanics are not universal in their application with stuff like deejay teleport as well. so while this may squish the gap it only makes the characters on the lower end of the even more redundant. i can tell you compelling reasons to play vega in SF4 despite being on the lower end of the TL.. i can't tell you a convincing reason to play ryu in SF6 despite being closer to the top tiers in every metric... just play ken instead.

@Shodan130

6 ай бұрын

also the obligitory sajam "show ST claw, 3s yun, sf4 elf" as if it has any place in the discussion at hand. you think the people playing ST don't know about ST claw until content creators brought it up? lol.

@sibami12

6 ай бұрын

Dude, until this day I still hear that FA is a neutral skip tool that kill footsies and whatnot. And my man, I don't know in which reality you live but historically characters with good rewarding neutral (either accidentally or purposely) have dominated and monopolized the meta of old games since always lmao. The addition of stronger universal mechanics was a direct response to this problem. Just imagine playing against 3s Chun li without the jumping parry approach. The balance of older games was pretty bad and even if sf4 is better, it's still pretty wack with very polarizing matchups. Like I don't think you should just roll over and die when they counter pick your character and universal mechanics mostly just add things that make the gameplan of whatever character more threatening, evening the playing field. It literally allows more diversity in characters.

@Shodan130

6 ай бұрын

@@sibami12 bro i'm well aware of the meta of old games. i play them all the time. no one is arguing that the balance wasn't worse back then. especially considering we are on SF6's first version. my point is that with the mechanics so numerious and the game being about who can play the mechanics more the games characters lack diversity. it's not about what my character wants to do against what your character wants to do. it's about how well do i use drive and drive rush vs how well you use it. it's why even though SF6 is better balanced than any game that came before it. many people cannot think of a solid competitive reason to pick up a mid tier in SF6. why pick that character when the other character can use drive better in a game all about using drive.

Id say sfv was the beginning of unga bunga world. Specifically season 2 and 3. Laura and Abigail rolling people with full screen rock/paper/scissors felt like a new universe to me. this also happens to be when bonchan started calling the developers slurs

@Zenbon111

6 ай бұрын

you'd be wrong

Just realized I’m a boomer because the recent term “neutral skip” makes me annoyed and it’s dumb

66L really is just Sol fS but everyone has it this time its an obnoxious neutral tool

Nu 13 is so fucked up lmao

I like how mk is the only fighting game not mentioned or is considered to have a neutral skip😂😂😂😂😂😂

@LordKnightfgc

6 ай бұрын

just speaking about games I competed in. I did play Injustice but never MK

The super dashing is what got me grew tired of DBFZ

Its more-so the system mechanics enabling it imo. I don't mind fighting bullshit characters who can x or y obnoxious thing because that's always been the case but having things like Super Dash / Limit Break / Drive Rush / Drive Impact / SF6 Parry / Wild Assault / Tekken 8 Heat and Granblues 66X and Ultimate Abilities. I'd rather fight a straight up top tier character than frustrating/mindless system mechanics that are forced upon us. [TL;DR] Bullshit Characters = Dont care. Bullshit System Mechanics = Piss off.

its possible to make a game without system mechanics homogenizing characters, while still being balanced when patched after a while. but that takes time, and the people that actually fund games don't want to pay developers for that long, and developers likely dont want to spend that much time on a game. the only people to make games like that now are probably indie devs, i would think.

I wouldnt choose the universal mechanic game. Seriously. Bad analogy, cus I like creativity. If every character gets in, does the thing, does a mixup in the exact same way, you arent fighting the character, you are fighting the mechanic, which I then understand why people are focusing on drive rush, dragon rush etc as a problem for a game. Game devs have more than 30 years of fighting game experience, im certain we can make a well balanced game without so many universal mechanics. Or at least I should be certain, but its not the case which is a whole other topic.

@pian-0g445

6 ай бұрын

Actually, at least with Strive, it’s universal mechanics is still very ‘character specific’ in every character has a few unique usage of them. RC in all GG games it appears in has always been fun, especially Xrd & Strive, mostly because it goes beyond convo extension, but movement, bait, mix-up and such. And the new drive rush mechanic has 3 different versions, in which different characters have one of three. What the universal mechanic does is allow you to fundamentally understand the tools available to your opponent as besides character, is the same, but the way they use it can be unique. Like Ky for example doesn’t really have much mix-ups alone. But with the use of RC, people created corner mix-ups and even air approached mix ups. Especially the current version which has been tweaked, it’s pretty fun right now. And helps that strive, even if more tame compared to past entries, still have characters that play widely different from each other beyond the new simplified gatling system. Asuka, Happy Chaos, Goldlewis. 3 completely new characters get extremely unique ways of playing them (kind of like Blazblue).

@Craft2299

6 ай бұрын

@@pian-0g445 Roman Cancel is a good universal mechanic that allows for absolute creativity, yes. Almost to a detriment in some cases. But then they introduce something like Wild Assault... But I disagree with "Extremely" unique ways of playing characters (specified or not). Because its not constant, only when you have tension can you maybe do a quirky new thing. Its up to the characters design to be diverse enough for players to play the character differently, not so much the universal mechanic. Imo, Jack-O, Zato and Asuka are the only characters in strive that can completely change up their style, in necessity or pure preference, without tension. Everyone else feels completely set in stone as to how they should be played, played against etc. But thats just strive dumbing itself down from its previous.

The whole conversation became dishonest as soon as the reply to the twitter post about fundamental game mechanics was the few cherry picked characters that did not adhere to game rules, as if they would be equivalent to the fundamental game design choices we see in modern fighting games as a whole. from that I knew the conversation was going to be misrepresented. Twitter as usual.

The term is cringe..."Neutral Skip" 😂😂😂

The age of ungaa will never end the ungaa is eternal

I feel like your tweet took this discussion in a very poor direction. I was really expecting this discussion to end up being about why trends in system mechanics changed over time, like how many games made in the wake of SF4 had comeback mechanics as you mentioned. Instead, everyone got up in arms over the obviously jokey last sentence. Really exemplifies how dull fgc discussion often is.

Im tryna figure out when the neutral footsie era ever existed 😂 the scrub copium gotta be some gas. Sad to see these terms being used as just buzz words to criticize modern fighters. Fighting games have always been and always will be BS. Pick your struggle, or keep crying on twitter.

God, that clip at the start with the "netural skips" in old games, is that really just fighting games in general? A genre where everything is a zero-sum game

You all make this shit way too complicated. Just play what you like and do what you like and understand you're not the only one. Really that simple.

@AMnotQ

6 ай бұрын

You can feel free to do that. You can also choose to think of games as critically as you’d like. They aren’t “making this shit too complicated,” it was already complex, as fighting games are complex. A discussion surrounding fighting games, featuring participants that take these games seriously - because that is how they choose to enjoy the game - are bound to be “complicated.” C’mon man.

@Caseyisforeverr

6 ай бұрын

@@AMnotQ I agree, but this is not one of the complicated ones

Footies is kinda getting old now

Yea neutral skips are very degenerate when they are too strong. im glad you acknowledged all the reasons neutral is so important. And of course old games had horrendous neutral skips, but, they where pretty much always tied to certain characters. and when i pick a poison, i chose a few busted stupid neutral skip characters. vs half the roster. why? because i can just not play vs the BS characters and then i can have fun! or at least i can lab heavily vs those few bs characters, and be able to deal with them. also its probably more likely they will be nerfed. For example, in 3s fightcade i literally just don't fight yuns. im here for fun, and a fair-ish fight. not to play vs that bs lmao!

Footsies is gay. The whole point of neutral is to get out of neutral on your terms an stay out on your term. Street fighter is one of the only games in my memory that forced me back to neutral after winning the fkin zoning minigame with these motherfkin fireballs. People should be forced to make decisions and not just chill til the pressure strings end.

@maxrusty3596

6 ай бұрын

In that last sentence did u just imply that ppl shouldnt be able to play defense lmao. What are you talking about

@freehatespeech6804

6 ай бұрын

Win footsies, *then* leave neutral to do safe jumps and mixups

@giantdinoboy8264

6 ай бұрын

​@@maxrusty3596They are saying that the defender can option select blockstring pressure so it is more of a formality.

@pretzels7437

6 ай бұрын

??? I never understand the philosphy behind these takes. DBFZ is incredibly aggressive and yet the gods of that game have an iron wall defense.

@freehatespeech6804

6 ай бұрын

​@@pretzels7437 Hard times create strong men