Content creators hate him: one weird trick for teaching fighting games (or just about anything else)
This did numbers on Twitter so I figure it's worth posting for y'all here too.
Free tip for anyone trying to help new fighting game players:
Experienced players benefit from infodumps and cheat sheets bc they already know how to learn this stuff. New players are better served by just seeing just enough information that they can digest in a single sitting.
If you're making a video thinking "I'll present everything here so that the new player has an easy reference point", that new player is feeling increasing amounts of despair every minute that goes on that they see something they don't understand. Despair makes people give up.
When you actually try teaching people 1:1 you can see pretty quickly when they're at their limit. They might nod their head and tell you they get it, but it probably won't stick. You can also test this out on yourself by trying to learn something new and seeing how your retention goes.
I find that with stuff like FGs, many people who get into them are nerds who can handle the school-study aspect just fine, but underestimate how much time it takes for their hands to keep up. So they get demoralized bc they think they "know" but cannot do.
If someone feels bad after watching a video because they didn't quite understand it, or they feel bad after playing a game because they did worse than they thought they should, they're one step closer to quitting. After enough bad-feels sessions, they'll churn out.
So: if you want to help new people pick up FGs, you can't do it with a single staggering work of heartbreaking genius. Give people small things to work on, one at a time.
Show them the mountain and they'll be scared off. So just keep them focused on the steps in front of them.
Also, if you're reading this as a new fighting game player, stop overwhelming yourself with a million guides and resources. Just try to do one new thing a day. I swear to god if I see one more fighting game fan excited to play fighting games for the first time I'm gonna scream.
For more excellent new-player-friendly fighting game learning material, my next book is getting early access chapters posted over at my Patreon. Go take a look.
