I have an idea that could quell the crappy posts, but people are gonna have to hear me out for a minute.
A lot of the threads we see in general discussion that are, for lack of a better term, absolutely god awful and attract the types of posts we are referring to are from new players that are either clueless or frustrated in regards to a certain aspect of the game, example:
1. "Why is Fillia X move so dumb?"
2. "How do I deal with Peacock spam?"
3. "I can't do a throw with Cerebella!"
When we see threads like this, as people who actually play Skullgirls, the video game, our first reaction is to post sarcastic comments because well, its hard to be serious when we see the same exact threads over and over again and they're posted by people with a seeming complete lack of willingness to learn.
An all too common example, taken from a certain Facebook group that won't be named, but it also incredibly common here as well, is the topic of "Peacock spam". A player is frustrated with not understanding how to fight Peacock and wants to figure out how to accomplish this in the best way they know possible: by posting DIRECTLY in General Gameplay discussion.
Now as people that play this, the video game, Skullgirls, our first reaction to a dude claiming Peacock is actually unbeatable and that what she's doing is simply "mindless spam", or a guy that thinks Cerebella does too much damage because they don't understand they need to neutral jump command grabs, is to be sarcastic. Its really hard not to be sarcastic when we know the person claiming Peacock is a scrub character is just sitting there getting hit by projectiles and making no effort to avoid them, or when a guy is probably getting hit by the EXACT SAME Cerebella command grab setup over and over and over again is complaining that Cerebella the grappler is just doing way too much damage oh boy.
But lets play Devil's Advocate for a second here. We've all been new to video games. Fighting games are intimidating. There's so much information a new player has to consume to even understand what's going on. Its a very daunting task. OK, so why do I bring this up? Because Skullheart is incredibly disorganized when it comes to providing information to players, especially new players in the Gameplay General thread which is the FIRST place people look for information.
When I started playing fighting games, I posted on a site called Something Awful in their games forum. The Street Fighter 4 thread was absolutely wonderful. The OP had everything a new player would need, a glossary of terms, a video by David Sirloin that explained footsies, a link to the footsies handbook, a general breakdown of the characters and how they played, and even a link to a guide on what arcade stick should buy and different grips players could use on their sticks!
It was all there, in one place, and easy to find. It was a great resource to new players and answered many of my questions IMMEDIATELY off the bat.
On Shoryuken, if you go to the OP in any character forum, all the information is right there, in the OP! Everything you could possibly need to know, and the OP is updated so all relevant stuff is in the first page of the thread. On Skullheart, if you want to find burst baits, resets, or optimal combos, you often times have to dig through three or four pages worth of a thread. Its all over the place. My local community and I actually had to start a Google doc to keep track of all the information because it was so all over the place on Skullheart. Yes I know you should take your notes for a fighting game, but lets be real here. There's no reason all this information SHOULDN'T be better organized.
However, even more general in that, in the General Gameplay Discussion thread, which is where the problem lies, has one thread that is actually designed to give new players information. There needs to be more than that, much more. There should be threads that are designed to be as entry level as possible in regards to the information they provide. Why is this important?
Skullgirls has a huge advantage over other fighting games, in that its art style is absolutely gorgeous. So many people are drawn to this game by its wonderful art and characters and then actually want to learn to play Skullgirls, or even more basic than that fighting games in general. When these players want to play Skullgirls, and actually LEARN to play it, when they come to Skullheart to learn the game they just finda massive collection of information scattered all over the place. That's why we have so many threads like "What's a burst bait" and "How do I punch move".
We've all been brand new to a video game and been the guy that asks a very basic question and gets scoffed at for it. The best way to solve this issue is to actually have better stickied threads in General Discussion designed to give people information that are starting from ABSOLUTELY ZERO FIGHTING GAME EXPERIENCE. If you have threads that give basic rundowns of how to play footsies in anime fighters, glossaries of fighting game terms, explanations of Skullgirls combo systems, how assists work and how to call them, how to deal with strategies that a new player is going to find frustrating etc etc then you're going to see a lot less of the type of threads posted in General Discussion that attract the kind of posting you want to prevent.
I feel like this thread is trying to find ways of cutting weeds when the bigger issue is how to prevent them in the first place.
The reason I believe all of what I said is relevant here, and not in another thread, is because I believe there is a direct correlation between low quality posting and the disorganization of information on Skullheart.
If we do a better job of informing players that click straight to General Gameplay Discussion instead of anywhere else by having threads RIGHT THERE for them to read and learn from, we'll have less threads that will only be responded to with memes and sarcasm.
tl:dr New players will post less bad threads in General Discussion, which will result in less silly/sarcastic posts, if the players are better informed from the get-go
Thanks to anyone that actually read through this massive wall of text.
