Defining My Least Liked Term in Fighting Games (Player Expression)
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- #fightinggames #guiltygear #guiltygearstrive
The question of "does this game have enough player expression" comes up quite often when discussing fighting games. On stream, I share my definition and why I am not a fan of the discussion.
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I'm sorry, but I'm good on this. Your least liked term? What are you defending? Strive is the most expressionless piece of garbage to come out in a long time. Remember when people tried a bunch of different shit and it worked? In Strive, you HAVE to do THIS or THAT. You HAVE to. I want to smash my fucking skull against my remote cause of how boring, bland and stale the game is. The many options, mixups and opportunities I've come up with in other Guilty Gears made it worth it. And it's funny, the more repetitive I get in XXAC, the worse I was doing. The more I started fucking around and doing different things, the better off I was. I would come up with new strategies often enough and it helped me perform better.
It's my least liked term because people use it lazily to just call the games they like good and the games they don't like bad
@@LordKnightfgc Well, I apologize I came off like that. I'm not doing it to call the game good or bad. I honestly think Strive is a mediocre game cause it brings nothing new to the table. The reason I liked "player expression" is cause, I got to try new things I've never tried before. I wanted each match to be special. I loved watching matches. One time some guy teched near the ground against Omito and he did this crazy airdash while falling down and it was such an insane mixup. I LOVE it.... It was just really cool to me.
In Strive, if you hit someone, you'd be dumb to just drop the combo and that's the game dude... I just hate it. Plus, I never liked roman cancelling in neutral in Xrd just to slow time. I'm not gonna like it in Strive either. It feels like there's a place for these things, but nowadays each fighting game is the same crap.
When I play Strive, all the passion is sucked out. It's me trying to counter obvious bullcrap such as Potemkin doing backwards mega pistol. I know what's coming. I just have to deal with it every time the same ways. I can't experiment, I can't try any new mixups, hell, I can't even roman cancel 214S as Giovanna just to get a crossup low even after getting a knockdown cause of how the game is designed. In Xrd or XXAC, I could do things like that and WAYYY more even without roman cancelling.
hey LN thank you for saving my family from that big fire the other day you're my hero I'm your biggest fan
@@ladong644 Wha?
@@LordKnightfgc lol i thought you had your alt do this as a joke
player expression is when I like the game and the more I like it the more player expressioner it is
same energy as "socialism is when government does stuff" lol
Kind of a counterpoint to this: I’ll use the Sol/Millia example. For casual/some mid level players who aren’t really trying to improve a lot, there is are a lot of choices there. This is mainly due to a lack of knowledge about the situation from both players. However; to them, it’s still a lot of choices to be made. I remember you saying that strive “trimmed the fat” with how they changed gatlings and such. For these people, the fat and the other parts of the dinner are the same thing lol.
Tekken is an easy example. Characters have around 100 moves but 70% of their move list are just knowledge checks. You watch high level tekken and you see like 10 moves used outside of combo filler for most characters. Then you play Tekken online and you will see moves that you didn’t even know the character had. Those moves are usually really gimmicky. To those players though, those moves are just as important as their key moves like jab and df1.
That's a good example and I think if you asked intermediate FG players who enjoy dumping their time into FGs, they would say they prefer the game without the fat. No one wants to spend so much time learning just knowledge checks so they can get to the actual gameplay.
Even if Strive does trim the fat down to a core gameplay loop, I still think its flawed. You can have a simple toolset and still have a large set of ways to use that toolset. Melee is my go to example of this. You're not gonna play someone and have them pull out a move you've never seen before, but its definitely not uncommon to see people use a move you've seen 100s of times in a new and interesting way because that single move has that much depth to it.
@@DragynFyre12 definetly, season 2 they need add a bit more spice for the characters, but I don’t want them to do what other games do and make it knowledge check, because the. Uh becomes less focused on the fighting of the fighting game
I think dragon ball has no player expression because there's no option for me to play as solo Hit. The game forces me to choose two other clods I don't wanna play as. My way of expressing myself is doing raw tag to keep Hit alive with my two meat shields. That is the optimal way to play.
in my experience, "player expression" for other people comes down to high character power, large pool of moves and big combos.
you can see this especially when people make combat mods. the things they add/change aren't usually all that interesting in terms of utility. It's usually more hitstun for longer combos and/or more moves to use in those combos that ultimately don't change much but how the combo visually looks.
i'm also on the side of player expression = choices made. i find it weird that people don't consider movement, defensive decisions and resource management used for things outside of offense as player expression. they think about the offense they can apply. the conversation needs to be steered towards other choices.
Weird. I play Bedman. He sucks as a character, his power is shit, his pool of moves are just as good as other characters and his combos aren't that big. Yet I can free form with him all the time.
To be fair, Xrd is more free form than Strive in all those other areas too. More and better movement options, more upsides and downsides to using both IB and FD, more metered options and no meter penalty on supers etc etc. Not that having less choices is objectively bad, people like Street Fighter because of its explicitly reserved design, after all
@@Siberianhusky89 congrats I guess? you fall under the group of people that don't think the way I'm talking about.
@@NeoBoneGirl lol I don't think it was really being implied that Xrd has less player expression than Strive.
That's weird. The character I liked in XRD sucked. He had little character power, small pool of moves and wasn't that combo heavy compared to some other characters. But know what he had? A lot of opportunity to make up shit and be expressive.
I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of having players record matches with color 01 for their characters and have someone/Sajam guess who it is based on playstyle, and do it in the editing style of a “Who’s that Pokemon?!”
ye, we need more Sajam gameshows 😆
"Player expression" is when you do a jump-in into a 2M and it works because the opponent is futilely trying to practice good defense in 5 frames of delay
brutal 🤣
I'll never forget in your video about Leon Massey's Strive review, when he's talking about player expression, you said "just tell me you want broken shit" and showed that clip of you annihilating someone in the corner with Secret Garden
lk dunking on leon? I want to watch that, but I couldn't find the video on LK's channel, not under any obvious name anyway. If you could point me to where I can find it, that'd be swell
Now I really want Sajam to Stream "Guess the player" instead of "Will it Kill" for a stream.
I think a layer of player expression that people seem to miss is that more importantly than having all these options is that these options *work.* It doesn't matter if a character can do a bunch of things if all those things get beat by just one persistent option. If the option isn't viable, *it's not an option.*
Everythings viable if u play well, thats the thing if u have another option to throw at ur opponent even if its not considered good if they arent expecting it its more value than it not being there at all. I dont like the game telling me how to play it.
@@maxrusty3596 throwing a bad option is not playing well. Hence why it's not an option.
@@seokkyunhong8812 Well mayb i disagree that this hypothetical move were talking about is bad. If u think things are black and white then ur probably not very good. If the bad option is used unexpectedly at certain times it makes it good. Lk is trying to make a point and mayb it has some merit but notice the spacing hes at. If Sol gets just a little bit closer then all those options that supposedly do nothing and lose to the same thing no longer loses.
@@seokkyunhong8812 Ur simple minded man. The ways in which u could vary ur pressure game in Xrd was super fun. Im sick of going thru my same 3 options and ending on minus frames or going for strike throw. This game is getting stale as hell. And im very good at it but man am i sick of beating ppl the same way without variance. From combos to pressure its all cycling thru like 3 variants and its wack. Thats all im saying. The game is forcing u to play it a certain way or ur just not playing good like u said. The extra options in XRD are not bad or useless by any means.
@@seokkyunhong8812 By that logic, picking anything besides the strongest character in the game is 'not an option'.
As someone that started with competitive fighting games with melee, it's never been a question of what 'player expression' is even if it can be hard to describe. M2K's Marth emphasized 0 to death grab combos and edge guarding, PPMD's Marth emphasized neutral control and aggressive but safe dash dancing, and Zain's Marth also emphasized dashdancing but with a lethal punish game even on floaty characters.
Yea I remember the first time I saw armada's fox. His fox was way cleaner than most American spaceys who just seem to say fuck it and played way riskier.
This is me as well, and I think its why I push for player expression to exist in all fighting games.
Something about the fact that you can immediately identify who is playing what character in a smash set really gets me going. Like even seeing Mang0’s puff you’re like, “Oh, that’s definitely Mang0 playing.”
So I totally get the argument of “trimming the fat” but I think it limits the opportunity to see things like this happen.
The platform fighter genre seems to just inherently have lots of player expression due to how freeform movement is. You brought up melee Marth, but in brawlhalla I could easily tell Boomie's string focused blasters with insane recovery routes apart from Cody Travis's spacing focused blasters with impeccable sair edgeguards.
platform fighters definitely have a ton of this, And I agree with Gengar: I think it mostly comes from the movement. It also helps that there are so many variables during combos (percent, stage, character weight, DI, etc) that its much harder to know what's actually optimal or guaranteed in the moment. Smash characters have far fewer moves than street fighter characters (and a lot of moves in smash are almost useless), but you can sometimes tell who's playing just by watching their movement.
@@gengarisnotinsmash... Wait a fellow gengar in smash wanter? I thought I was the only one
There's an interview with Bobby Fischer the greatest chess player of all time where he explains why he started hating chess and stopped playing it: "Bobby Fischer on Paul Morphy and how opening theory destroyed chess "I hate chess" - Bobby Fischer."
Basically it boils down to chess becoming solved not just by centuries of theory, but brute forced to actually becoming 100% solved by computers nowadays. Chess has lost creativity because there exists a proven 100% optimal answer to beating your opponent, if you're not playing this optimal way, you are just going to lose to someone playing optimally.
Which means that chess has become a game not about choices, but about blundering, people making the wrong moves on their way towards this optimal game. Because of this loss of creativity, "player expression" is gone, playing optimally destroys creativity and expression.
As more knowledge is uncovered on any game, the game will start losing expression and creativity, the only way to counter this is to have the skill and knowledge ceiling so high that it might not even be humanly possible to reach that optimal level, so that people are playing not optimally but at an extremely high level.
But there's another way, in the interview Fischer suggests that the better way to play chess is "Fischer Random", basically randomised chess pieces, this disrupts opening theory and gets rid of the optimal, allowing creativity and skill to return to the game, so that it is fun.
Player expression is the opposite of optimal, it's not about winning, it's about fun. It's about having so many choices you can make, cool things you can do for fun. Which is why taking away moves even if those moves are "useless" in competitive play reduces player expression, some people just like to try and do flex combos and not care about winning optimally.
Well said!
I mean you made really good points over all, but you forgot a major part of your comment: the expression is only gone if there is a discovered optimal way to play that playing different than will make you objectively worse. Even in vanilla street fighter 2, which could be considered one of the fighting games with the least player expression, there's no bot that's been created that always beats every human player, nor any algorithm that will 100% make you win if you follow it. At the end of the day, even with the tools we have, the amount of player expression that's gets reduced is not as important as what you get by reducing the amount of tools (i.e making all tools useful and purposeful, and fun to use)
@@SlothWindGod Yea the one thing that real time games have over turn based games is that there's a much higher "solved" ceiling because of the huge amounts of variables.
But if there's an optimal way to play a character on their own, it means there's less room for creativity and expression.
Characters should have multiple game plans and paths to take against any opponent. 3D fighters like Tekken allow this to happen because of their huge move lists; That even though it is possible to find optimal counters against every single move in the game, the amount of knowledge, skill and practice needed is beyond any human.
@@GuyWithAnAmazingHat I think what's gained by the slightly lowered creativity is worth it though. Even in games with hundreds of moves, there will always be an optimal way to play. Tekken being a great example. I think the "possible" creativity you could gain by adding more moves is less important than the worse overall game/character balance that would come from adding those moves. Not to mention the fact that when novelists get big, moves tend to overlap, meaning people end up doing things optimally anyway, because why use X special when y special does all it does but better with less recovery/more range, ect ect.
Get rid of the clutter. None of that actually has any bearing on the merit of useless moves. There's infinite ways for something to be bad and useless, so there's no need to actually create it.
Making shitty chess pieces doesn't actually improve the chess, nor does enabling garbage in fighting games actually improve the gameplay.
For example: If Gadouken and YAHOO are essentially Taunts for Dan, inclusion of both just take up space while fulfilling the same results. There's no justification for making either bad on purpose. Making them both valuable is how SFV made the best Dan so far.
Players will find ways to be bad. Devs should not make garbage to facilitate badness.
Player Expression is when I played the game for 20 years
The game lacks player expression if I only played it for about a week, and half of that was me complaining on Twitter that the new game is not like the old game
Dude, player expression is when you get to try a HUGE multitude of options that have never been tried before because you know they'll work. Things you've never tried before even throughout the test of time.
@@Siberianhusky89 how do you know it will work when it's never been tried? That doesn't make any sense.
@@HellecticMojo Experience. Taking a stab at it during the moment. Feeling it.
@@Siberianhusky89 that's not knowing anything, that's guessing. Also again, how the fuck do you have experience on something that's never tried? Literal oxymoron here.
another Sorrelhas hit 🤣
"player expression is when i win"
Gotta say that now a days i only see that term coined to shit on games and talk about the good old days and it always feels petty
Weird... I never win at Strive even when I win. Know why? Cause the game is a half @$$ piece of shit that's not fun. I win, I whine and cry that every single aspect I enjoyed about the series got erased. I lose? Shame on me for practicing. But sure, those people are petty. It's not to crap on games dude. It was because people enjoyed their series and got robbed of ever seeing anything like it in the future for a bunch of whiny jerks who moaned.
@@Siberianhusky89 really black kettle there.
@@HellecticMojo I'm sorry, but the game's so plain. The matches aren't fun to watch, there's no room to move on the screen, the hitboxes are HUGE, the reason why the hitboxes were huge in the previous games were because you had so much room to move around. It was a compliment. Now, they just removed a bunch of mechanics and kept mechanics that no longer have a reason to be there. They use to serve a function to stop this or that from happening and their new "functions" suck ass cause a lot of what it counters is stuff that's just obnoxious.
@@Siberianhusky89 not every person loves every game, and that's ok.
look around the FGC...you might just find something u like more 🙌
@@Siberianhusky89 so can you stop being a whiny jerk then? If whiny jerks who moaned shouldn't have gotten this, then why should you?
Also people didn't enjoy the series. Guilty Gear is an abysmally selling franchise that lost to their Blazblue and other licensed peers in every iterations across all markets. Guilty Gear was saved by Strive. Any other franchise with these track records should've gotten the axe decades ago and be relegated to pachinko machines.
I think "the choices you can make" is a perfect definition and I'm gonna start using it.
In the context of "player expression" when comparing Xrd to Strive, I think my friend (who is a top P+ player and is amazing at nearly every fighting game they play) accidentally broke it down for me one day.
They said that they prefer the way Strive plays because they know what a player is going to do, they just don't know when the player is going to do it.
I prefer games that have more character depth because, even if there's an "optimal way" to play the character, the sheer variety in the options that COULD happen means that I'm less likely to know WHAT a player is going to do. That, combined with the fact that Xrd is built around plus frames with much more strict windows to cancel a move into another move, means that I pretty much always know WHEN a player is going to do a thing, but I don't know what thing that they're going to do.
So I think the "player expression" debate is coming from a similar place. There are some people who prefer having no earthly idea what the other character is going to do and the RPS comes from having to guess what option they are going to select next. There are other people who prefer knowing exactly what a character is going to try to do to you but the RPS comes from not knowing exactly WHEN they're going to do it. The people who feel like Strive is lacking "player expression" are probably from the former, and they're probably salty that they keep guessing what a player is going to do but guess the wrong timing and get punished for it anyway.
good post! :D
...this is just me, but i wish people were more ok to have different preferences~
@@yourbellboy
I also agree.
I think its harder to just accept that Strive is the sequel to Xrd for people who enjoy Xrd’s style. Like people who play Street Fighter wont get mad if Strive doesnt play like SF, but if the next SF game plays dramatically different then they might.
Same thing happened with Melee to Brawl, and Soul Calibur 2 to 3. People dont like it when they feel like their fighting game franchise has gone backwards in some capacity.
Im actually really glad my friend told me their thoughts as it helped me realized why some people might actually prefer Strive’s approach on the franchise despite many people saying otherwise.
I can respect it for what it is, but I do still wish it were different PERSONALLY. Personally.
@@m0002856 personally, i think that's rlly fair :)
i think that could be it yea, u see those people being mad saying things like "he always does the same thing but i lose to it anyway" because they expect to beat it based on knowledge, not timing/application. That person would do better in an environment that rewards knowledge and restricts timing
I think that player expression should be a broader definition, but I totally agree with the sentiment that many people don't know what they're talking about and just use it as a lazy way to shit on games they don't like and can't articulate why. But there's some real value in some discussions about it.
I think it refers to a few different categories of things. First is being able to succeed with different skills. In DBFZ in like 2019, G01 had the best defense, Fenritti had the optimal combos/ToD's, Sonicfox had the best offense/scrambles, and Kazunoko had the best reads/DPs/conditioning. They had teams that facilitated success with those skills, but it didn't feel like it was just because of character differences. Theres not just one right way to play a character: not because there isn't optimal decisions, but because no one is perfect and everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. It was very cool to watch the storylines around that time and it really felt like different players styles shone through. Unfortunately, i think this relies on top players having weaknesses. So the more a game gets figured out, the more everyone is going to make those optimal decisions. This version of expression is best when a game is new and fresh, and lasts longer when information is harder to find/share and executing the optimal stuff consistently is very hard (e.g. old games). I think for people that value this, they should advocate "I want my game to stay fresh, and change often if necessary" and "I want a variety of skills to be rewarded in vastly different ways." Alternatively you could just stay casual, cuz intermediate players shouldn't really have this problem.
Some people do mean "I want high character power and lots of moves" as well, but LK's got them pinned already.
Alright, then allow me to provide some "valuable" discussion.
I use to be able to do soooo many things in Guilty Gear. Someone would air tech, I'd go for an air throw, or throw out a trap that set them in the air into a bad position, or they'd recover in a weird way, or a projectile would hit me as I thought I had my chance, or some other thing would happen. In Strive, you have NONE of these options. The game is EXTREMELY black and white. You HAVE to do this to counter that move. Remember when you could jump out of totsugeki pressure? Too bad now! Instead of actually making a decision on whether to do the air one or not at the right time, it's AUTOMATICALLY right either way.
And don't even bring up SonicFox. The guy walked into Xrd, I creamed him and he never ever came back. Wonder why. Remember when you'd use moves just to roman cancel them for MOVEMENT?! Then you'd potentially get a projectile crossup form that alone after summoning before or calling your projectile after. Now, I have to be told that I'm apparently not able to improvise because I'm "playing Giovanna." Since when the hell was THAT a factor? I could play ANYONE in the past games and try thousands of new things CONSTANTLY once I got the hang of them. And some wayyy better than me.
There is no expression in Strive. Everything is absolute for the most part. The game is extremely solidified in what you can and can't do. Your decisions HAVE to be this way. They HAVE to be that way. That's not expressive at all! The game got rid of legitimately every aspect I loved about it, brought in shit that I HATED in Xrd and has no one that worked on past gameplay working on the gameplay now. Instead, we get some mediocre fighting game where you have to play objectively, movement is EXTREMELY limited, you are FORCED Into situations such as when you block in the air and being tumbled down in a way that constantly repeats into the same bullcrap, 6Ps can flat out destroy moves, and you don't even have to put in the effort to "get good".
Yet, people are saying bullcrap as if what we say isn't true. If it was, why is it I walk into the game, and most people cannot beat me with one of the crappiest characters in the game? You honestly think that's some form of fluke? I don't even repeat a lot of the shit I do often enough. Sometimes I do, but often enough, I keep coming up with new plans. In Strive, you just keep doing the same damned plans over and over again but better.
I’d actually be down to see that Guess the Player idea. Think it’d be pretty amusing to get a few people to call out the idiosyncrasies of particular players.
LK: Millia wiggler.
Hotashi: Throws a round, wins the set Nago.
Yes Like this comment so that LK sees it.
This could literally be a good even on LK or Sajam channel.
Even tic tac toe has player expression, my and my friends play online and they always call out my BS when i go circle in the middle
You can tell how much someone plays a fighting game when they point out the lack of variety in a players combos instead of talking about what tools they favor in how they approach neutral
Combos are probably a lesser way to express yourself in a fighting game
Combos are a great way to express it. While I might go for a tiny bit less optimal because I prefer a stronger Oki. You have the full bombo combo bombers. Sometimes I'll express through sheer disrespect of your plus frames
And yet people bitch about combos and gatling options the most while they refuse to deviate.
@@quint2568 despite this, in most cases, yiu are going to sue the most optimal damage or set up combo. Obviously when you’re having fun you can do stupid stuff, but outside of that, your play style comes from what you do and how you react.
I express myself by winning (insert Adam Sandler from Uncut Gem here)
Okay but seriously, anytime I hear about Strive limiting 'player expression', some of these people are TOD fetishists. Like they dont care about other player's choices, they wanna make their one choice stick and roll over without next 1v1 interaction. 'Most fighting game players are selfish' indeed
I would say that Player Expression goes slightly beyond “Choice” into “Customization”. I see it as basically how our brains turn playing a game from “I am pressing a series of buttons” into “I am fighting someone.”
Personally, I think “Player Expression” is too narrow a term for what I think is just a small part of a much bigger discussion. Like “Why do animals (including humans) create and play games of all kinds? Why do we find them fun?” big.
TL;DR- I don’t think anybody actually knows what it is.
I'm still relatively new with fighting games, but when I heard the term "player expression" my thought was more of the nuances a player does in their overall gameplay with a character that separates them from everyone else. So it's interesting to hear more context on how the player base seems to use the term
thanks for joining the FGC! it's always nice to see new faces! :D
yea, FGC terms are very unique & fluid because the medium is so pragmatic & complex--it can be really fun 😲 to discuss the value & use of them!
First time I could notice player expression outside of it being a skill gap was sbo 2006 when kurahashi fought muteki in the guile mirror in super turbo. Seeing the choice difference between the two players that where stylistic rather than optimization. Generally, I see it where the optimized choices for damage, oki, and other execution aspects are similar but the choices for approach are different based on the player.
As long as stylistic choices exist in some aspect of the game, player expression can exists where it's not merely a question on character mastery.
Something that people claim to have while doing the same bnb they copied online.
I think character selection is where the player expression tends to be most impactful
underrated comment
...? Care to elaborate?
@@IppoX90 bro because thats where you choose the character, the decision that has the biggest impact on how you play
@@tacomeat5689 Right...
to pitch in my 2 cents, personally i think that when people talk about player expression they care more about how many unique gamestates are likely to be reached, how visually distinct those gamestates are, and how quickly the game moves from state to state. so the reason that people get grumpy about strive really has more to do with the fact that for the most part, you're seeing a lot of the same situations a lot more than you do in a game like XX or Xrd, and because the game generally moves slower, you're hanging on those situations for longer.
i also think there's something to be said for people liking knowledge checks. you gave an example with millia vs sol f.S for instance and like, being able to learn something like that as a way to become a slightly stronger player is i think a lot easier for people to wrap their heads around than learning to be better at mindgames, because mindgames are really hard and seeing improvement at them is really hard, and often you get ambiently better at them just by playing for a long time anyway so having a big complicated mess of interactions that have best answers but where knowing every best answer is pretty difficult makes the game easier to learn. this doesn't really have much to do with player expression itself but i think it's a tangentially related point that might feed into it in some ways.
"Lack Of Player Expression" is what happens when the FGC demands that the games we buy have tutorials that teach us EVERY SINGLE THING we can do in the game, leaving no room for discovery.
I'm going through this right now in the game SIFU. A reviewer once complained about the tutorial not explaining the proper usage of moves, for instance the directional throw. Whilst his complaint is absolutely true, I had lots of fun figuring out the various ways to use the movest by myself.
Discovery can give similar feelings as player expression, but they are not the same thing.
LK having the point of view of a competitor/constant learner here. It makes total sense and I like how you break it down. I, myself, loving learning process of what is actually useful, I agree.
I would just had this to what you said. (You may not like it):
From the point of view of casual/very casual player, the options exist as long as the opponent doesn't know how to counter it. I think playing to improve is still pretty scarce in the entire community that play FGs. And the players that don't look for constant improvement will focus on the set of "available" options even though they all lose to particular answer, and call it player expression.
Good ass video as always. Still waiting for you and Romolla to do some type of crossover ;-)
I get what you mean but there are plenty of professional players and content creators that cry about this topic.
The way I kind of see it is with this question: You want to give every character every tool? Ok let´s just make a game with a single character that can play zoning, has plus frames on every move, three different DPs, multiple command grabs for all situations and movement options. There you go, every player will play that character differently but nobody will want to play that game.
Don´t take it personal it´s just a very extreme arguement I like to bring up. Nothing specific against you
@@JBasilix i get you. For that you are right. The FGC in particularly cries even more than casuals.
And that's because every quote on quote 'legacy player' look at older games and be like: look so many moves, so many mechanics'.
Funny thing that the FGC thinks they are different than casual when a lot of them sound just like casuals about every new FG.
I think this is a fair take, and it is why I wanted to use XRD as an example.
Also as others have said, this is a repeating theme in the scene, so I figured I would share my definition, as it was actually XRD that made me believe there wasn't a one true style.
player expression is just another buzzword like most FG terms
I think your definition of player expression is much more useful from game design standpoint than the usual "more moves" options variant. If we only consider offensive and combo options we fall into the trap of ignoring the way players act on defense or how universal mechanics impact the experience which can lead to a conclusion that only high power games filled with infinites and tods grant players ability to express themselves through gameplay. This would imply that kusoge are the pinnacle of fighting game design which is a conclusion I cannot accept.
Also great choice of music, Persona 4 soundtrack always helps me stay calm and is a excellent fit for this kind of subject.
Kusoge is the pinnacle of game design
People talk about loving the player expression in guilty gear but whenever I play any game everyone online does the same bnbs and pressure lol
They hate it but you're right.
I do miss some things from Xrd though. It's cool to find unique callouts to things your opponent does. And there was a good progression for me learning easier combos/setups before advancing to optimal/character specific ones. Something about learning why some things are worse than others helped me improve.
One of the things I love about KOF is the base system is such a blank slate, you can tell whose playing even across multiple characters
If "Player Expression" is about the choices they make in different situations, do you think that includes skins, color pallets, stage selection, and music? These don't directly impact game mechanics, but I'd say it impacts a players mental.
I pick #5 Ramlethal(green), and get jealous when they picked the same thing in a mirror match and I am not the green one! (and maybe even lose myself in the screen lol)
I think this is also less about having more moves, but more suboptimal swag routes like all those 1f links in SF4. Stuff that people don't usually go for, but that people can do if they want to do risky useless stuff to style on their opponent.
I say this every couple fighting game videos, but Touhou Hisoutensoku would scratch so many itches for people.
My player expression is when I do the funny combo the CZcamsr I watch does.
i think "player expression" to me sometimes comes off as specifically focusing on combos. like the whole "you should be able to tell who's playing" type sentiment has this vibe of somebody missing the days of The Sako Combo and stuff. nothing wrong with wanting your very own combo, god knows i'm guilty of doing the shittiest combos possible just because they look funny, but idk it's hard to explain exactly how i feel without being one of those guys writing a three-paragraph essay in a youtube comment section
Lol we all know those 8 teen Gohan bombos in one combo are very a very strong expression of the freedom that dbfz gives.
One of the examples I think about when it comes to player expression is how differently nuckledu and dieminion played Guile in sf4; not a character famous for having a multitude of different moves exactly. And yet, those two had distinct and powerful styles. Like you said, you can pick up on a player's style even in a game with fairly limited moveset if you make the effort to look.
That having been said, I'm a fan of games with large movesets and rosters (for team games in particular). It's fun to dig through and experiment, especially if I've not been doing too hot playing other people : D. In a very simple game I'll lose and know it's purely because I'm bad at reading my opponents. In a more complex game I can at least implement a new move or way of using a move while I work on the more fundamental things. Helps with maintaining motivation I find.
It's also fun watching people with mastery of a complex character or team and see them find ways to use everything they have available.
I was watching my friend play a mirror match and I was able to keep track of who's who because I knew his playstyle
Player expression isn't just your choices, it's how impactful they are.
If the heavy handed Devs say "this character plays this way" and you have a billion options but they all lead to one thing and you're just playing your character worse if you aren't going for your one win condition then you have less player expression.
If you have fewer options but your have win conditions A, B, C and you make fewer choices towards a wildly different playstyle then you have expressed yourself more than the guy who hit a billion buttons but ultimately got railroaded into their win condition.
How do you fight against a character with multiple win conditions? Of course characters are going to have archetypes and general win conditions, Millia’s is mix up and it has been, Axl’s is keeping his enemy out and winning from range. Imagine if Axl had close range and long range win conditions, it wouldn’t be fun to play against. The same way you wouldn’t give sol a full screen projectile, you wouldn’t give Axl a meter less DP. Characters are given have archetypes so that they have clear strengths and weaknesses, and kits that complement that.
@@reinsmano axl literally had a dp in the last game
@@thisisMYname223 He did in Xrd, where the characters had quicker movement and a 25% meter option that allowed them to get in very easily. If I’m remembering correctly Axl wasn’t very good in Xrd either. It still wouldn’t make sense to give him a meter less reversal in strive, just based on how general ground and air movement is, and the fact that burst and sickle storm exist, especially if you consider positive bonus. If Axl had his meter less dp it would almost be impossible to get in on him in this game since he could just dp prc, and since it’s grounded that might be easier to do on whiff though obviously we don’t know because the move isn’t in the game
@@reinsmano i never once mentioned strive. my point was about where player expression comes from in *A GAME*.
you responded with what seemed like "multiple win cons don't make sense characters are built the way they are for a reason something something zoners like axle cant have a dp because he needs to be weak up close"
which is just obviously wrong as you've just explained yourself how it worked in the past without making him broken.
not that its as simple as just giving characters tools. a better example of what im talking about off the top of my head would be things like dizzy mechanics and the way people might adjust their approach because of that mechanic or like how the grabs work in blazblue.
if you want to say they cant / shouldn't put these things in strive then youre right. its too late to make changes like that to strive without alienating its current playerbase. but its foolish to apply that logic to the idea of player expression in general.
@@thisisMYname223 I don’t see how adding a DP would increase player expression. A close tangle invincible reversal on a zoner is only there to help them create space when the opponent gets in, so why would you use it in any other situation? If you’re closing space with with Axl and using the DP to do it sure, but you can do that without a DP in strive so it wouldn’t be the DP that’s creating player expression. I definitely overgeneralized and used a horrible example when I said it would make the character broken as I was thinking only of strive, so that’s mb. What I wanted to say was that you wouldn’t give Axl the same tools that make Sol or Nago strong close range. I do agree that tools help with player expression, even though I personally don’t like status effects like dizzy or stagger and I haven’t played BB so I can’t say much on that.
The main issue with giving every character multiple win cons is that you’ll more easily create redundant characters. It’s part of the reason dbfz balance isn’t that good, so many characters have half screen normals and full screen beams that characters like frieza and beerus aren’t that good. The same goes for bardock and ssj vegeta, who have ki blasts and full screen lariats but get overshadowed by characters like vegito, New 21, Gogeta blue, and ssj4 gogeta who all have either have better ki blasts, fullscreen beams, half screen normals, DP, and/or lariats (that also go through projectiles). Of course, you can have different characters with the same/similar win cons and one will probably be better than the others, but having a single win con means it’s easier to differentiate by simply giving them different tools. Millia disk, I-no dash, and chipp alpha blade are all tools that help these character mix, but they have different tool kits that can allow people who might not like a specific character play in a style they enjoy. HC and Axl are another example of different tools for the same play style, as well as Ky and Sol (and probably Gio).
TLDR: I did generalize, mb. Still, I think having a single win con in mind when designing a character can help make more varied gameplay in matches by giving different characters different tools to reach the same win con, instead of having multiple characters with multiple win cons, since it makes other characters almost pointless to make imo
tfw you have 12 'options' but 11 of them lose to the same thing. Hey, you can play rock and 11 colors of paper, those colors are to make you feel like you have more options without actually being meaningfully different. When I try to explain this to someone who doesn't really play gear more than a few mins they look at me like I'm an idiot.
I really like how strive cleaned a lot of this stuff up and pared down the bad options that just trick new players.
LK's gameshow "Who's?! That?! PRO?!" such a good idea! I love this video and it's articulated perfectly! The fact that you put a bow on the concept by coming up with engaging and thoughtful solution with an interactive game is honestly brilliant!
I think player expression is the ingenuity of the person when faced with a situation.
It's the type of behavior that really can't be measured but when someone invents a new solution to a common situation that an opponent was not prepared for. Idk I feel like to me the definition is vague and when I go to bed tonight it might be a different thing if someone asked me the same question in a month
When I think of player expression I think more of the SF4 era where you had things like Sako combos, or other combos that were very difficult to pull off that only some players went for and ended up being known for doing those combos or doing specific mixups in certain situations.
I wouldn't be too dismissive of games/characters having a large number of tools. Sure a bunch of situations can boil down to a simple rps but I think in general a larger number of tools tends to result in the game's guessing situations having more valid options. So while in a given situation in Strive you might be playing legit rock paper scissors, in Xrd a similar situation could be more akin to rock, fuzzy rock, paper, scissors, baseball bat, 25% meter shotgun, 50% meter rock RC, each option with their own risk reward. Of course this isn't *always* the case but I think there is a correlation.
Xrd is also tight because a bunch of the tech and combos are hard enough that no human does optimal confirms and setups in every situation. Really helps with the whole player expression thing when one of the big choices is how much you want to push your execution to gain an advantage in any given situation.
I think it's worth noting that people don't want as much player expression as they think they do.
Like... if a character has so many different viable playstyles and viable choices in different situations... wouldn't that just be a character thats way too strong at a certain point?
This topic is funny to me, coming at it as a long term tekken player. Specially now. Since "player expression" is such a used word nowadays.Or just moaning about a lack of looseness..I think back to tekken tag 2. It didn't sell well at all. And even to this day gets hate from a lot of people. Even tekken 7.
And some of the most common complaints are.
1.having to lern two characters
2.the characters have to many moves
3.roster to big
4.to many option's
5.games to hard
And I'm like...yall crying about player expression and no looseness all the time yet whenever a game drop like that don't no one want to play it. Blazblue. Leading up to it..re dropping? With roll back. All this talk about
"ohh were finally getting a real fighting game"
"ohh a game with some actual combos"
"Ohh blazblue got rollback!? Bet I'm in there!"
....crickets...
Melty blood drops
"Ohh it's over for strive"
"We got a game with option's now"
"I'm uninstalling strive rn"
.....crickets....
Now the new thing is
"ohh man if XRD get roll back its over for strive"
Maaan gtfo. Dudes would play that game for a week and drop it.
That's my issue with that term. Becouse what fellows behind it is a bunch of excuses as to why the game with all the player expression isn't being played. If you want player expression so badly. Go play the game that has it then...oh wait..
7:15 Well, if you want a fighting game where practically everything potentially leads to touch of death: I present to you Bushido Blade, Squaresoft's forgotten fighting game series. It doesn't even bother to have a life bar.
I always consider ‘player expression’ is about doing cool stylish combo, and what cool combo you wanna do.
I think the articulating what you mean better is something that I struggle with and seemingly alot of people. I like the idea of playing games with just more moves but I dont force that ideology on games that do the opposite like Strive. Strive and SFV the only problem I have with them is that like you said their concisely made to fit the devs intention. Nothing wrong with that but people should realize this is subjective rather than objective preferences.
I always thought it was just like, punishes, bnbs, and optimal stuff being obvious versus more hidden, or more open ended or situational etc
honestly I always figured player expression was their over all combo routes/structures, the way they play neutral and the variety of how they approach the game compared to other players. I personally think it's a good thing to have in a fighting game, since it allows more players to freely play how they feel is right to them
so I think I get it. are you saying that, expression comes through in a players choices/way they play, but people feel that more moves in the tool kit would mean people could more fully show that personality, and you're saying that that's not neccesarily true? (edit: so just because you can do more "stuff" doesn't mean you have tons more options or expression, got it)
Lee having six thousand moves no one uses in Tekken 7 doesn't translate to more options, because no one really uses them. And aside from that, the things that are most expressive would be tactics/playstyle, risk vs less risk, that kind of thing, not whether or not you performed move number 914 with Lee.
like are you saying freedom and options can kind of be a loaded thing that people ask for? I think a game can be really well designed but people ask for more, not even sure themselves what kind of more they want. and so it's by definition not enough.
I will watch certain players and feel that such a personality comes out, the same round win animations will play but I'll get a cocky vibe if one player is playing, or a cool vibe or a collected/methodical vibe. and it's crazy cause the character has the same tool kit but there's a discernable approach or personality about them.
Having lots of tools can give you an advantage as the following example:
imagine an optimal route for a character that is a mixup between 5C > 5D > 214D or 236D where the quarter circle moves would be an overhead and a low which are combo starters.
If you're on defense you only need to guess overhead or low and it's basically a 50/50.
Now imagine if you have another move... Let's say 623C that is not optimal or unsafe or whatever. On the hands of scrubs they will have fun just because it's more buttons to press and as with high level players this might be a option to use not very often but when you do, even if the move is delayed or lead to bad scaling combos or whatever it might set the opponent off his base leading to a reset string, maybe a frame trap or a weird command grab that is not good but worked just because the opponent was not expecting it.
There are ups and downs regarding the size of a characters movesets and I think it comes to taste if you enjoy the crazyness of mvc3 or the more grounded pacing of Street Fighter or GG Strive (I know those games are not the same. I'm only saying those are more "grounded" games when compared to mvc3).
There should be enough games on the market for those two audiences and honestly? It's not a reason to get mad.
"But I don't like when people use the term lazily"
Why not? If you know what they mean, then the conversation can keep going. I think this video was a sliiiiightly bad take with a little bit of salt. I like your content, LK, but don't get mad at little stuff like that.
i like the way you're describing the term in this video, especially considering that, as more people gravitate to optimal ways of play in terms of combos and damage, the most you can determine from a player is seeing what they can/can't deal with and how they do/don't get around it.
Make a video series out of that. Guess the player. (but you have to give a list to choose from)
Yeah a 'will it kill' type of series
After rewatching "emergent gameplay" videos i start to think that when people say "i want emergent gameplay and player expression" a lot of them are saying "i want to find "cheap" techniques and use them against new players to feel better about myself". I like when game have a lot of things to do and people say Tekken is that way, it's loose, but i don't like Tekken, it feels safe. What is the point in being loose if you can't do anything with it? I personally, want more "explosive" game where your life is constantly at risk, it makes me feel alive.
I also know a guy who loves playing boardgames with people who play them for the first time, but hates playing against people who know everything about the game. I kind of feel Max is the same way. Maybe, for him looseness of the game depends more on the people who are playing it and not on the game itself, because if you doesn't know how to play then every game is loose.
I don't get people saying "player expression" = combos. More often than not "character tools" is the version I heard. Also in the Xrd example, the meter gives both players in that scenario more options.
All things considered, I don't think it's unfair to say that older Guilty Gear allowed for more choices player could make than Strive does (at least +R and Xrd).
When I think of player expression, I think of the way of playing the game and not the combos or anything. The choices you make like you said.
I always felt like more options actually lessens player expression because it increases the likelihood that there is a tool which answers a situation optimally. Player expression comes from movement, neutral, decision making etc. It basically happens in the player vs player match up. The more cracked a fighting game is the lower the likelihood that the player match up even has to be played. I dont have to outplay you consistently if I can get a hit and then unblockable set up into unblockable set up you. At that point it really does not matter who I am and who my opponent is the situation is repeated for everyone because its just that powerful. On a side note: From all my time observing these kinds of conversations I cant help but get the strong feeling that people are actually not interested in the player match up. They dont care for the pure pvp experience of out-thinking another human being. They'd prefer (so it seems) to come up with some stuff that the opponent cant answer and hit them with that to feel powerful and dominant. As dominating the opponent actually requires people to consistently outplay their opponent they tend to call the game boring. A good example of this is ppls dislike of strike-throw systems. Strike throw is "boring" because your opponent can interact, the reward for throws is low and its hard to shimmy some1 when its so much safer to try and tech the throw. But putting some1 in a 4 way vortex-mixup where no interaction is had and the guy just has to guess for 40% of his life is "hype". How turning a pvp experience momentarily into a single player game is hype is beyond me but every1 keeps shouting "oooooh that sick set up!!" anyway.
Player expression is when Grapplers are good because it makes your opponent express themselves loudly.
I really like this analysis. I haven’t consciously thought about that aspect before.
Just curious, LK, where does Melee fall on the "player expression" scale for you? I feel like lots of moves and MUs are varied and players approach them drastically differently despite having a relatively simple moveset.
I'd say the more freedom the game gives to the player the more expressive. Melee has tons of different combo paths based on di, and each player will figure out different answers for the same problem.
this reminds me of myself and how I use Potemkin in strive. my Pot is very scrubby lol. how I made it to floor 10 is a miracle. and even more so that I've made it to celestial 4 times (can't stick the landing in there tho)... but basically I feel I play my Pot a lot differently from what I see big name Pot's like Fab. and it makes me think about player expression and what that could mean to a casual like me. I do garbage and usually get away with it. like hammer fall cancels into Gigantor Kai lol when then opponent is getting up. It's weird, I feel there's a lot of choices still in Strive and you can see it a soon as you peep what level of skill someone is at.
i’ve been waiting for this one
Fw the persona 4 music
You can do basically whatever you want in almost every game. The real question is if can you win doing that. I'm not a big fan of Strive because poke oriented lockdown isn't really a thing, even though I try to make it a thing.
How can you say that you came from blazblue and you don't like the term player expression. There are so many blaz players where you could watch a game without any names on the screen and know how that player is. For example if you watch nuka play 12, the dude will often get 50 meter and then just run at someone and dp into RC and if he hits it he will have the cleanest and sickest confirms off it. Even with that kind of unga DP style he also has the cleanest set ups in the corner and is a joy to watch.
Sako in SF4 has an insanely hard set of character specific loops that are named after him and you could watch him vs daigo and instantly know whoes evil ryu is who's. Also his menat is insane and has a lot of freedom in the way the player expresses themselves through the character.
Even in melty which you name checked as well, there are some white len players that do some incredibly creative stuff with that character, i just have no clue how anyone could deny that certain games have a high degree of player expression through it's characters.
Even in SFV, Guile's Daigo is very apparent, his style is so distinguish.
Actually do the sajam minigame. That would be mad interesting.
Good video and I agree. Example is Itabashi Zangief and Snake Eyez Zangief the difference between them is straight up just there decision making
I like the idea of submitting gameplay with the default colors and player name blurred out to see if people can recognize top player gameplay. It would be an interesting watch.
For such nebulous terms like "player expression" is I always try to remind myself: People know HOW they feel but not necessarily WHY they feel like that.
Personally I consider a game has a good amount of "player expression" when there's a good amount of redundancy between various options without a really big compromising factor that turns the player off from just picking the safe/most accostumed one.
But then I don't think playerbases' issues with "player expression" are equal amongst different games or even in the same game.
Like, I see a lot of similarities between Guilty Gear's and Devil May Cry's "player expression" discourse, which, more often than not, boils down to player's expetations about what the series "should" feel not being met (I'm not telling my take on this one tho 'cuz I just know better).
But then you have stuff like Strive's Gatling changes and honestly, I just see it as a failure of framing the changes in an appealing way. When the Strive gatling chart started making rounds in social media and people saw how it looked like a spreadsheet people developed assumptions. If they'd rather (had the chance to) frame it as a set of rules like it was before where it was P>K>S>H>D (except a lot of the time it wasn't like that and like a previous LK video pointed out, short strings where always a thing) and then have players figure out where the rules apply and where didn't then maybe we wouldn't still be talking about it. EDIT: Instead, a lot of players might have seen the chart and went "welp, I guess this is the only thing I can do" and the opinion went around.
I know why I feel like that. I just want to feel unique. If I have to play a character the same way everyone else plays it, then it'll feel like a waste of time and I'll drop the video game.
Though DMC5 has very floaty gameplay with weak gravity, no inertia (and Guard cancel for Dante), overall I think that players can still find their own styles albeit with very different nuances. Nero and Vergil are definitely upgraded version from DMC4, Dante with his various moves across 4 firearms, 4 devil arms and 4 styles (5 if we count SDT) is as complex as his counterpart in DMC4.
@@HamsterPants522 Then find a way to be unique in the game, you can do this in nearly every game ever made, with only a small number of exceptions. As the exceptions have to be EXTREMELY basic with only 1 way to play the game. A good example of this is pong, as there is really no way to be unique in the game. But even a game like connect 4 has player expression.
it's kind of a meme. at least the specific phrasing.
playstyle is down to how you act and what decisions you favor. everyone has different preferences and tendencies.
i think players who talk about 'player expression' mostly play their character and not the opponent.
The truest of facts, right here
the funniest part about player expression is when they say "oh wow *new game from old franchise* doesn't have player expression like *old game from the same franchise*" like with strive, then you go and watch a sol match in +R and Everyone, literally EVERYONE DO THE SAME EXACT SIDEWINDER COMBO, In every fucking match
You shouldn't lie just to get internet points.
@@maxmin2434 I don't see a lie.
@@seokkyunhong8812 Then you didn't play the game.
@@maxmin2434 neither have you if you think the sidewinder combos are different from player to player.
@@matshbocks I don't man, a lot can be said about a Sol player who goes for the knockdown after two sidewinders vs the player who attempts to go for five.
I never heard the term until like months after Strive. Really makes you think.
Really? I heard that term even in hearthstone before everyone realized there was only one way to optimally play each deck.
Term popped up with claims SFV having less expression as well and people were full of crap then and is full of crap now
lk : a game that has tod out of everything doesn't exist
hnk: am i a joke to you
me :probably
"Player expression" is a meaningless term which is used almost exclusively to say "My game is better than yours".
I think of it more as an umbrella term that people incorrectly use to complain about combo variety (or usually perceived lack thereof)
No it's not. Some games have very little expression. Look at something like sf2 where combos are extremely short and either optimal or drop. Then look at injustice playing Solomon Grundy going for the entire pain chain. Or fighterz where there are dozens of ways I can combo off of a solid 5m. Expression leads to innovation.
@@quint2568 so you are saying that your game is better than yours?
@@quint2568 What you are describing is combo variety, not player expression. Games like Street Fighter have low combo variety, while games like Injustice, Dragon Ball, and Blazblue have high combo variety, which stems from mechanics, cancel options, move pools, etc..
Combo Variety =/= Player Expression and never will. Player Expression comes from making decisions as a player in certain situations with the tools you are given. Sure, you have a lot of moves to use in a combo but not all of them can get you out of a trouble when you need it/help you land a hit in neutral. Its the *player's* ability to *use their character's tools* to either get out of a sticky situation or get into an advantages situation/land that hit, that defines "player expression".
Once you land that hit however, there is little to no player expression. You are doing the combo you've practiced and don't drop, which has been seen and done before countless times by countless other players. The only time player expression actually happens is if the opponent can make decisions DURING a combo, which usually isn't a lot of unless you are KI, and even then its a lot less decisions than when you're in neutral or on defense.
@@EvanAxel woke
Heartpeak Heartbreak Playing In The Background 😌
On my life I was thinking exactly this two minutes before seeing this video upon seeing a comment saying "I hope sf6 will have more expression in combos" or smt, it was some brain f clip (the combo was sick)
Someday, I wanna see a "will it kill" style of show with people trying to figure out which players are fighting since they know all about identifying players on "old school" games. Justin Wong plays Third Strike on stream a lot, and he always throws out Chun's super to see if people can parry, you can pick 5 of those clips and put Evo 37 in the middle of them. I guarantee people will not come close to unanimously identify the Daigo clip, lol. This is such a BS term.
for the first time ever i wasnt able to understand what the LK video was trying to tell me. i feel ashamed.
I could understand, but being able to tell who's playing by just the way they play is my favorite part of games like +r.
There is a huge difference between the way badomidu plays Eddie, and the way Sonny plays eddie
I like what you had to say but I'm a bit disappointed you didn't get more into the nitty gritty of it, possibly because this vid is more about venting frustration with other people not articulating how they feel. For example, as a Millia main I think you're in a unique position to talk about places where fighting games are designed around _removing_ player choice, and how one-sided advantages create the illusion of choice (like in your Xrd example).
And yet, games like skullgirls and umvc3 have the most player expression in all of fighting games
Tbh I like knowledge checks which is why I like older gg games more than strive. I ike hc tho.
I swear everything is always black and white and there is never a middle ground to anything in this community
I can immediately tell who is playing in Strive. People don´t realize that having less moves where the moves are more versatile creates a bigger canvas. Compare all you can do with Bandit Bringer in Strive to what you can do with it in XRD. That should clue you in. The RC system in Strive is by far the richest, with endless variations possible, just look for crazy Strive shit in twitter: there are endless ammounts of it. And yeah, in tournaments, you see a world of difference between one Chipp and another, or one Zato vs another, and it´s really cool. LK is right that people don´t really articulate their thoughts they just spout shit like monkeys.
i might be wrong but for me its neutral and how i can open someone up in my own ways but idk thats how i felt about it
The people who always talk about "Player Expression" are all the same people who think that Hard Combos = Good Game. It's literally a boomer mindset to think everything should be difficult just because your fighting game experience was difficult.
I thought I heard you say "Goku SJW" and immediately felt sad that such a character doesn't exist. What the fuck is the point of a multiverse if you don't give the people what they want?!??!!
My player expression is "AH" - Always Haircar. Works every time at floor 6
Nice no bait title. Thanks
To me, player expression has always meant being able to play a single character in a variety of different styles. It never meant I wanted a character to be stronger than others. I just want to feel distinct from other players who play the same character as me.
Huh atleast im on a better page i guess ive never used that term i just talk about players finding there play styles in various fighting games
I like the Sajam idea, would be great to see him break it down. Not much else to say, commenting to appease Lord Algorithm.
nowadays character expression seems low because everyone watches the same character tutorial on CZcams instead of finding their own way to play
That situation in Xrd is real, but I also think you kinda vastly underplayed how that situation works when Sol gets closer, cuz stuff like 2S, 5H, and bandit revolver start catching your jumps and prejump frames. It's not like 80% of the options Sol has after fS lose to rising jP every time
In the midrange situation, it really actually works that way, rising JP beats almost everything he does and has no risk. It's a selection I have used for a very long time and one I learned from studying AC.
@@LordKnightfgc Yeah, I’m not saying you’re totally wrong because it’s literally in the video, but when you get into the range where 5H n stuff don’t whiff it does get a little more complex if the Sol is slightly delaying his cancels. Usually not all too great for Sol though because his options are all either high risk mid reward or low risk low reward but he’s not the kinda character who should be dominating midrange anyway
Yeah, so at higher level reactionary Millia > Sol midrange. His return is pretty high with some of his selections (sweep, 6p) but fS and 2s don't lead to much. In the case of 5h reaching after fS, he can't delay cancel (fS is like 2 or 3f active iirc so you just guard anyways. The good thing though is that 5h does have a pretty big option set here, so that's good.
Once you're on clear "defense" vs him, his pressure is quite open ended. It took me a while to define how to actually defend against him in XRD. There are a couple of these mid range situations where he can't really threaten with buttons being blocked too much without taking big risks - IMO for vs Millia, using his air movement well combined with midrange and occasionally fishing for CH was the hardest to deal with.
@@LordKnightfgc Yea, I gotta imagine it's a bit of a tough MU for Millia because Sol has some of the most fucked air buttons in the game so he can contest her air dominance, and if he guesses right she kinda explodes. fS and 2S are good just cuz they exist on Sol, but unless he has meter they don't do anything but lightly tap you on the wrist. They're basically just a way for him to annoy you into letting him into 2P range which is where things really get scary. I think Xrd Sol is probably the most well designed Sol, tbh? Seeing Sol is always enjoyable to me
Rev 2.1 prob even, 2.0 Sol adv, Strive slight Sol adv IMO (like 5.5, only because of return).
I like MANY versions of Sol, he's a dope char to be honest. AC, ACR, XRD, and current Sol are all pretty interesting imo.
Character expression means alot to me tbh and im sure thats true for many skullgirls and marvel players, My boys aero and Triv play on two ends of the spectrum for peacock one will mix your shit the other will zone you out completely and this is with the same character.
Ima be honest dbz combos dont have as much character expression as marvel, player specific combos are real and are the peak of this
Marvel also lets you get tod off pretty much everything
Hell eve player specific resets are a thing, getting a setup named after you
Character having more moves doesnt always mean more character expression, Dante in umvc3 for instance, but I do agree it possible, alot of playera just did the best loop available rather than finding optimal flash