Posts tagged street fighter 4

Shoryuken!

Street Fighter IV was one of the first games that I picked up when I got my Xbox 360 last year and one of the main reasons I wanted the 360 in the first place.  I used to love playing fighting games with my childhood friend Taurean and there was a lot of nostalgia behind my interest in the game.  I still remember playing the original Street Fighter II for a quarter in a little grocery store by were I grew up.  That store has been torn down and turned into a parking lot for years.  That along with all the arcades within a 50 mile radius being out of business, Street Fighter 4 has given me a little flashback to different times in gaming.

I’ve been playing Street Fighter quite a bit since I picked it up and while I am not at competition/tournament level, I have a pretty solid foundation in the game and enjoy it a lot.  There’s also a very deep community around it that has sparked quite a resurgence in the fighting game genre’s popularity – and in turn caused some pretty terrible games to be released to try and leach off it’s success. *cough* BlazBlue *cough* King of Fighters XII *cough*.

Besides the nostalgia of playing Super Street Fighter II with my old friend; over the course of the last 5 or so years and being mostly focused on MMO games, I have grown quite discontent with the competitive PvP aspects of MMO’s.  Quite honestly I don’t find them to be good “competition” at all – well at least the theme park style ones like Aion, WoW, WAR, AoC, etc.  I have some different opinions about the open systems of games like EVE/Fallen Earth but that’s a different topic.

Most PvP in those themepark style MMORPG’s is heavily dictated by equipment (and level of course) thus the main influence is time available to spend playing the game and “grinding” gear.  Now this doesn’t mean time spent practicing in a fighting game isn’t a factor.  It certainly is.  However there’s a difference between taking the time to practice combos, game mechanics, matchups vs. the taking time to “grind” equipment.  It removes a major portion of the human element from the competition and replaces it with game dice rolls and chance.  If I practice PvP (execution/strategy/etc) on my frost mage for 2 weeks and am wearing mostly green gear than I will likely still be killed fairly quickly by a fully geared gladiator rogue even though I may have superior skills in PvP.  This is an extreme example in many ways.  While it may be technically possible to kite the rogue 100% of the time if you got the jump on him and kill him due to game mechanics, your margin for error is incredibly small and in most cases you’ll be 2 shot by the rogue in reality.  There are dozens of variables on why someone wins a fight in both MMORPG’s and fighting games but ultimately in a fighting game it comes down to who is better at it.  While PvP in an MMORPG comes down to who has more time.

Now I’m not ragging on people for spending a lot of time playing games because if I was, I’d be struck down for being a hypocrite.  My point is in a dice roll combat system heavily influenced by stats/gear; a major portion of the fights control is taken out of my hands and decided by the game’s mechanics thus I no longer consider MMORPG PvP to be competitive or fulfilling.  I have had fun with it as a meta game within the larger scope of an MMORPG but to play an MMORPG for the sole purpose of PvP competition I find to be pointless and unrewarding.  Did you win because you’re better or because you got a lucky crit and they didn’t?  Did you win because they were wearing their PvE gear instead of their PvP gear because they’re out mining?

Now there are advocates that “war isn’t fair” so who cares if they’re lesser geared (i.e. don’t have as much time to play as me).  I still won!  Well I suppose you can look at it that way but to me it seems like you’re trying to sell the griefing session to yourself as a victory.  These type of people are usually also the first to complain about lag, an exploit (that doesn’t exist) or some other excuse when they loose; and it comes down to a simple truth.  They’re not playing to be competitive.  They’re playing to feel superior to other people or in the case of battlegrounds/arena; they are playing as a alternative way to grind gear.

Any form of skill brings with it an inherit sense of arrogance and pride.  That’s human nature and to deny it is to be untruthful.  The issue can resonate in two ways.  People that feel inadequate so they feel they must “conquer” other people to feel satisfied and people that have exaggerated egos and arrogance and can not handle the emotional impact of failing (and in turn crushing that ego).  These two situations usually result in camping, griefing and other unpleasant acts in MMORPG’s that I just don’t find in fighting games.  Now there’s bad losers in everything; I should know as I’ve gotten my share of hate mail on Xbox Live from sandy vagina’s in SF4 but even with that, the sportsmanship is still on a whole other level than what I’ve experienced in MMORPG’s.

Of course the amount of PvP that takes place in the open world, at least in World of Warcraft is small compared to arena/battlegrounds.  However the same issues apply in regards to gearing/stats/dice rolls taking priority over player skill.  There is one aspect of MMO PvP that fighting games don’t capture and that’s of teamwork.  Fighting games are mostly 1v1 scenarios.  However I would prefer an FPS over an MMO for a team style PvP game even though my FPS skills are pretty mediocre.

In conclusion, PvP is best served where player skill is the dominate factor over dice rolls and gear stats but that doesn’t mean MMO PvP can’t be an entertaining side game at least some of the time.