these aren't things i'm like. angry about or anything, just things that inform the way i think about fighting games because of stuff i've heard people say today in various spaces.
- there is never a point in a fighting game where you are "finally" playing the "real" game. if you're playing in arcade mode against the cpu, you're playing the real game. if you're playing matches with friends, you're playing the real game. if you're doing ranked, you're playing the real game. if you're doing story mode, you're playing the real game. i wrote a Medium article where I talk about this concept in a more roundabout way as part of one of the 4 things i wish someone had told me about fighting games, but it really rings true right now in the point i'm making. if you don't know a damn thing about how to read frame data but are still pressing buttons and doing your thing, you're playing the game. do not trick yourself into thinking anything more complicated than that, even if you're actively striving to like. get better at the game and want to learn the complicated stuff. incomplete knowledge or whatever, if you're out there playing the game you're playing the real game.
- you are never going to have a better understanding of what kind of game the development team wants to make than the development team themselves does. you may disagree with their balancing decisions. you may find them annoying. but the dev team has their idea in mind and you do not have the ability to perfectly discern what that idea is the way that you may think you do. this means insisting that a character should get super-specific buffs has a high chance of backfiring on you, because there is always a chance that what you think a character needs is not the same as what the developers want for the game, and there is no point in resenting the devs for not reading your mind and giving you what you wanted. come with no expectations when it comes to balancing, even if you know that devs have been taking feedback.
- (ok this one i am a little angry about, but it's because i keep hearing it from the same types of shitty people, and i'm tired of it) if a game in a franchise has made changes that you don't like, it has not suddenly stopped being a part of that franchise. you can not like that entry and play something else, and that's completely fine. that is normal. in fact, it is preferable that you do that and don't bother other people about it, because then you are having fun and the people who like the game you don't like are having fun. you will not find me strapping someone to a chair and telling them "strive or die" if they prefer older guilty gear games. but claiming that "new game in franchise" isn't really "game of franchise" has the same energy as me trying to say breath of the wild isn't a zelda game. it is a zelda game. just a zelda game in a style i don't like. a zelda game that was made for many other people but not me. and i can live with that.
