How hard is VF compared to other FGs?

Ah, well then ... Seems like the only thing left to do is blame Feck. Text is funny, and I read it the way I thought you wrote it. So I will say, pardon me, and then we can move on.

I actually find tekken inputs and timing more difficult then VF. It might be exposure and practice but if anyone were too ask me which I think is the more difficult game to pick up I'd say tekken.

 

I think vf is much more difficult than other fighters. I,ve played several fighters over the past ten years and i find vf to be the hardest to become good at.


Within just three months of playing tekken 6 for the first time ever i was winning about 58% of ranked matches online(played about 300). Also within four months of playing sf3 for the first time im winning also over half my matches(ive played over 500)

ive been playing vf for about about 10 months and i still cannot fully grasp the game. vf requires a lot of time and dedication if you want to reach just an intermediate level. there are soooooo many options both for defense and attack that it can be overwhelming. there is also a heavy emphasis on reading your opponent and being familiar with all the other characters in the game.

 

Its not VF being harder that those games you mentioned,

Its because in VF you play against people that are better than you. If you play people at your level, you can win without using all the options. Just abare and you will be ok.

If you play VF5 online chances are you will find people who are very good at the game and will know how to conter everything you throw at them.

 

As a person who plays fairly competitively in multiple fighting games, I can say without any hesitation that the games you mentioned in your post have multitudes of gimmicks/ambiguous attacks and setups.

VF is just a really raw fighting game. There isn't much ambiguity and what you see is generally what you get. Like you said there is a heavy emphasis on yomi in VF and that's the reason many of us enjoy the game so much. It's not about running an offensive flowchart, it's about being able to read, and out play the opponent.

In most other fighters, you can get away with abusing stuff and beat a lot of players. It just doesn't really exist as much in VF. Plus like others mentioned, VF community is really dedicated, you're not going to run into a lot of random players who don't at least know some basics.

 

While others made very good points I want to just add to those point a little. I obviously don't know Leftylizard's full gaming history. But if you started playing Tekken 6 shortly after it got released, the chance is of course that you could have run into many other beginners online. Given the large userbase, even long after the initial release you had a fair chance of running into mediocre players playing online (speaking from experiences).

Also, I might have to agree that VF has more defensive options. But it doesn't have more offensive options. That actually maybe why some people find it hard. In Tekken, even though knowing your opponent's character is in no way unimportant, you can get away with concentrating on offense to certain extent in the intermediate level. Actually in VF2 you could do that too. In VF2 you could practice a few bullshit offensive moves (such as Lau's knife rush and Akira's option select PKG rush) and win tournaments on spam fest. That stopped completely with VF3. Such spamming style play still remain a little in other fighting games that the beginners can use. (Well, Lei Fei is the closest thing to such style of play in VF5.)


Again, the VF has very small user base. Not too long after the XBOX360 release most casual players quit--heck, even many dedicated players quit, as it simply was not worth the time to go online only to find nobody. The point is, if you have relatively little chance of running into a beginner online on SSF4, that chance is virtually nonexistent on VF5.

Unfortunately the release of FS is unlikely to change that. Very few copies of SSF4AE sold compared to the original SF4. But you can surmise that a high percentage of the people who bought SSF4AE are dedicated SF players, opposed to the millions of the initial SF4 buyers who stopped playing the game thus did not buy the later versions. I don't see the pattern would be too different for VF5FS regrettably.

 

Eh? Blame me?! First time i've even viewed this thread, I don't even know what's going on

Back on topic, i've always struggled with fighting games outside of VF, I don't want to to deal with a barrage of 1 frame links and a 2f buffer window to get a grasp on the basics. That's part of the charm of VF, as far as the control scheme and inputs go it's very simple compared to most other games. The basics are easy to grasp and once you've got them down it's extremely fun to play with someone on a similar level to yourself.

I feel that the only other games that come close to VF's level of simplicity are the Soul Calibur games, they probably require more matchup knowledge than VF does but mechanically the games are simple and easy to have fun with.

 

learning VF is easy. however, the time it takes to do so is quite long. also, application of what you've learned takes even longer. after that, VF requires you to learn every character match up, the ins and outs for every character specific situations, and of course, character specific combos.

in addition, the game doesn't have flashy effects, no stupid glitches, no fireballs, etc. the game is pure yomi, and understanding how to expose your opponent's mistakes/bad habits. you can see how this would turn off the majority from learning the damn game.

 

It is as Flash said and being a smart player is required to be good at it. Being great at it requires even more intelligence than most people are willing to use taking into account every fine detail of the game in extreme detail. Once a person reaches that same high level regardless of the game (SF, MK, etc) they are all the same but getting there in VF tends to be a bigger challenge for most people compared to other games.

Everything about VF is simple and the only thing that might be somewhat challenging involves how to use all the defensive options given to you and make them work properly against your many foes. I am not very good at defense and the defensive options in the game aren't that hard to understand and use even for a terrible player like me. Other games that have fewer defensive options and are more masher friendly are games I really suck at and my natural lack of defensive skill shows getting me killed all the time. It shows in VF too but I can use the superior defensive options to cover it up enough to make me a decent VF player.

 

First off i never said i got on tekken 6 right afer release. I purchased tekken 6 a year and a half after it had been out(i don't like paying $60.00 for no game lol)and i was beating people who were ranked much higher than me.

VF is a GREAT fighting game but there are many things you have to take into account to excel at it: 1.characters weight: every combo won't work on every character. 2. positioning: be mindful of where you are or someone might ring you out. also some throws change into more damaging ones when your back is near a high wall.3.how many frames are on a move: you need to know this in any fighter, but it matter more in vf because of the numerous offense options.4. the height of your strikes: you really need to know were your/opponents attacks will land (high , mid , low)cause you can be severly punished in vf with damaging mid launchers,high throws, even wolf has really damaging low throws.

I like vf but it is deeper and harder to become intermediate at than any fighter ive ever played. Heck, even Justin Wong said its deep and learning just one fighter takes long.

 

Every fighting game has character specific combos, i've seen stuff in MvC3 and the like that is a lot more specific than VF's combos and a lot more difficult to setup.

You are aware that VF has combos that will work on everyone right?

I feel that spacing and positioning is much more important in games like Tekken and maybe SFIV, if you just watch a few high level Tekken and VF matches you'll see how important spacing is in Tekken compared to VF.

I don't play enough fighting games to know how important frames are in other games, this is just my opinion but advantage/disadvantage in VF feels more defined to me than other games. It can be really hard to tell when your opponent is at disadvantage in games like DoA, SC and Tekken, most of the time i'd end up digging through obscure threads to find out if I had advantage or not.

You seem to be confusing difficulty with depth. Tekken, SC and the like may be more n00b friendly but things start get difficult at intermediate levels, i'm not great at VF but just knowing the basics in the game allows me to feel comfortable playing high level players.

 

OK, maybe you need to consider the following:

1. there are universal combos. no need to learn max damage combos unless you playing somebody so strong that 5-10 points of damage for a combo could decide the round.

2.this works for all characters, its not something 'hard'.

3.you dont need to know frames to beat somebody who played the game for only 10 months. you need to know when to attack and defend.

4.attacks in VF all follow a similar pattern: mid to high, high to mid, low to high, high to low. you dont get mid to low or low to mid (except rare occasions). learn this and you can guard pretty much anything. again, not something to worry about if you play 10 months players.

5.Justing Wong should not be your source of info on VF. there are people here who played the game for 10 or more years, I have been playing since 2007 and there is no way, not a snowball chance in hell, that you can squeeze 5 years of experience and 1000's of matches in 10 months.


EDIT: LOL feck beat me to it

 

"Justin Wong said its deep and learning just one fighter takes long."

Fortunately, if you learn the system, you can play any character. The character-specific stuff is icing.

I think learning the system and learning how to see it at work during a fight is 81% of the whole game.

When I learned to see, it was magical. I'd been playing about 13 years and finally my eyes were opened. It didn't take that long to learn to see. I just never tried to do it before 2008.

 

I think part of why people overcomplicate stuff is because the other tools that make your character unique are just plain fun. The eileen safety net lends to spamming attacks, backdashing from small disadvantage then wiff punishing with a bigish move. But when push comes to shove and nothing seems to work, those basics are very handy for falling back on to shut someone's hijinks down.

 

Theres also stance-specific combos in VF which are exclusive to VF series.

Just doing basic combos in VF is sometimes complicated, but sega has been making it simpler in each iteration.

I would imagine the biggest thing causing this mantle of "difficulty" is that VF online never had that many players, so beginners would relatively often end up against experienced players, as opposed to games like Tekken and SF series.

 

Have the basics down then you learn your character's unique strengths inside those basics. What about that is different from other games aside from VF's baseline consistency?

 

PPL! You guys are in deep deep deep denial. Cats like leftylizard tell you that as players of many fighting games they feel VF is hard and then you all proceed to tell them they just don't understand what they are feeling. Its like a rapist tellin his victim as he shoves his penis in, you know you like it, all the while she is hollering stop.

The size of the community is the easiest to understand undeniable fact in this case. VF has been around long enough to have grown on its own even with bad advertising , or mis-advertising. If the game is good and easy, word of mouth of would have eventually made it the blockbuster that we all want it to be. The fact of the matter is, its not as easy to play, its not as exciting to play as other fighting games. Is simply just more cereberal than the other fight games that's a fact.

The other thing you cats just refuse to see is the most simple of experiments.

If you put 3 or 4 new fighting game noobs into a room with a copy of VF, SF,MK,SC, DOA,KOF,Tekken etc. for a week or so, the game that will have been played the absolute least will without a doubt be VF. I have dozens of empirical experiences where something like this happened. Sure I can't say it would happen every single time, but as a scientist, computer scientist, mathematician Im telling you it will happen the majority of the time.

When you consider the entire population on Earth of video game fighting fans, the majority of them don't like VF or find it difficult to play, or boring to play in comparison to the other options. I don't want that to be true, but it is.

Then we get noobs, or players that visit VFDC that tell you they find it hard, and you guys take 100 posts to tell them why they are mistaken they don't really find it hard, they've just [Fill in the blank]. They find it hard. They find it more difficult than other fighters. Its boring compared to other fighters. It offers less than most fighting games. So why can't we as a community just accept that fucking FACT?

We are now in, and always will be in the minority when it comes to fighting games.

Folks how can I make this any easier to understand? The more difficult the game to master the less ppl play it. I'm playing armored core V right now,
it suffers the same fate as VF its too complicated, it requires to much skill, there are too many variables , blah, blah, blah. PPL will play the shit out of Gundam though, or mech warriors, some of the other mecha games, but no no no no for armored core, because it just has too many options on defense and too many options on offense. Take for instance the FPS blockbuster COD, MW2. Millions ofppl are playing that game, granny, grandpa, baby sister, Rover, every fucking body, but as you get into more complex shooters that require more strategic, tactical, knowledge of the game, then the audience falls off dramatically. The more options there are on defense and offense, the more tactical, and strategic choices there are the less ppl play the game. I could go on and on Compare the size of the audience for Grand Turismo vs Need for Speed. Grand Turismo has become a difficult to play, but awesome simulation, If you really want to have fun get Midnight dub, or need for speed etc. The problem with Grand Turismo is its too good, too many options, too realisitic.

VF is a acquired taste, that just the way it is. VF players are born, not made, I'm sorry this is true, but its true. We should celebrate the fact that we are elite players. We should celebrate the fact that it does take a special person to sit down , play, enjoy and get better at VF and that we are among those special ppl. I bullshit all of the time about my skill set, whether I am loser or winner. I'll be honest wit yall now I'm a fuckin beast now in VF. Yes there are players better than me, and I'm better than some other players. But all of us that are intermediate to advanced are in the top 1% of the best fighting game players in the world. Because we play and have mastered to some extent one of the most difficult fighting games and one of the best fighting games on the planet. So why don't we just give ourselves some kudos for being truly bad ass , instead of trying water VF down for the masses.

Yeah, you heard heard right, VF players are the few, the brave, the fuckin bad asses among all fighting game players, and we shouldn't have to apologize for the game. If its too deep, too difficult, too hard for your then , go play Tekken, MK, SF or whatever. If you have managed to be at least intermediate or perhaps in advanced in VF then damn it, accept the fact that you are in a elite group, a minority among minority games. Yes! YES! YES! fighting games are among the most difficult video games on the planet. VF is among if not the most difficult fighting video game, and you have reached intermediate to advanced levels of playing VF. Then fuckin wear the crown, and STFU! Accept who you are ppl. Accept what the game is ppl!

The reality is we're legends. We can play everybody else's game well but they can't play ours. That says something about who we are. We fuckin Rock!

In the future I will try to restrain myself from this kind of outburst, but I simply can't take the VF is just as easy as any other fighter bullshit any more.
because its not just as easy (maybe sega may water it down some day so that will be true) But not today.

Yea Mutha fuckas I said it.

 

I'm skeptical of that kind of hyperbole, masterpo, but you do raise points worth considering. I think a part of the thread is contending over small aspects of what makes VF distinct or uniquely difficult from other games. I just wanted to refocus that, since things like Tekken's movesets exist in an entirely different context. In a discussion like this, I think it's worth considering the whole context. Fwiw, I think gl0ry nailed it. Think about it like this: relative to other games games there's not a whole lot of strict control over the flow of a match, so small/med advantage situations aren't really one-sided guessing games at all, and the neutral game always carries risks if you're over-reliant on certain moves.

VF's lack of mass appeal is attributable to no shortage of factors other than aesthetics and perceived difficulty. Starcraft: BW was popular on up to the release of Starcraft 2, and it used uggo pre-rendered graphics. It had its own personality, but it was also a severely unforgiving game as players figured more and more out about it. However, it had casual fun multiplayer mods, and a fun single player for the time in 1998. I think that's the main thing: VF offers very little to people uninterested in competitive play. Other games are more ambivalent toward being competitive, though they may have their own depth.