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- New World Pope
When I am looking for new videos of Skullgirls I sometimes watch beginner players and a lot of them have similar problems when they first start out. They don't understand basic concepts in fighting games and when they finally fight someone else who is good they get destroyed and don’t know why. I have been thinking about this problem for a while and I have some suggestions on how to improve Skullgirls for new players. My suggestions are not based on the gameplay but are based on how to introduce basic fighting game concepts to new players. I know that a lot of my suggestions are unfeasible due to time or money so I don’t expected everything to be added but I hope some of my suggestion can help out. Warning! Incoming text dump!
When a new player boots up Skullgirls for the first time the first problem shows up: what button is Lk? For a controller or fightstick messing around with the controller is enough to figure it out but for keyboard you have to go through every key to find the right one. You can’t rely on people knowing what the default keys are for a fighter like you can for a FPS so my suggestion is to have a popup showing the default keyboard configuration. This should only show up the very first time you boot up Skullgirls since you only need it once.
After they know the buttons there are three places and newbie can go: Tutorial, Story mode, and versus. For new players the tutorial is great and there are only a few suggestions. One is for Chp. 1 lesson 3 to let players pass only if they are able to hit the dummy with s.LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, and HK in order and indicate that they can see what button is being pressed on the bottom of the screen. This can teach players what button is what on their controller, a useful skill. Second suggestion is for the first quitting point for most players, the dreaded Defending Against Mixups chapter. One of their problems is that they try to react to the dash as well as the jump. Text reiterating that they don’t need to react to the dash, only the jump might help. Third is the combo lessons is Chp. 3 and 4. For a lot of new players it helps to actually see the combo performed before attempting it. Provide a replay of the combo like in guilty gear XRD.
For some new players the tutorial and the training mode is all that is required but most do not apply the lessons they learn in training mode to a real match if they even play the tutorial at all. What they do is play the story mode and in the story mode they can be taught how to play fighting games. The problem is that people can button mash all the way to the final boss. My suggestion to fix this is to include “impossible minibosses” into the story mode. Now when I say impossible minibosses I am not suggest infinite health autoblocking monsters, I am talking about opponents that cannot be defeated by simple button mashing.
An example for what I mean. Let us say that Filia's A.I. was modified to always Updo the opponent when in range, do a large combo if she has the meter for it, and bock at all other times. For people who are familiar with fighting games this Filia is easy to defeat but for someone who is new to fighting game they will get destroyed. Now here is the important part. For the people who beat Filia the first time the story continues as normal but for the people who get knocked out treat the loss as a continuation of the story. Have another A.I. controlled character come in to block and punish the Updo, and snap her out to set the stage for a tutorial lesson in the story mode. The lesson should be about how to block and punish DP’s and when they have demonstrated proficiency in the task send them out for a rematch. Now they will know how to fight against Filia and feel great about knocking her out. This can be repeated for other concepts in fighting games so that by the time they finish the story mode they have a rough understanding on how to play fighting games.
If they want to play with their friends it will be much harder to teach them but I can think of a few suggestions. Before going into any versus mode except tournament for the first time have a how to play text box pop up. The text box should include stuff like how to block, doing simple combos, and how to tag and do assist. For online matches there needs to be an explanation for GGPO. When a new person sees the GGPO suggestion they get confused and then when the match starts figure that whatever it was it wasn’t important and will lag terribly because they didn’t set it right. A detailed explanation will go a long way to help new people understand what GGPO delay they would want.
I know that a lot of these suggestions won’t get into Skullgirls because of time and money constraints but I hope some can be implemented. If anyone else has any more suggestion or criticism post it in this thread. Sorry for the long rambling post.
When a new player boots up Skullgirls for the first time the first problem shows up: what button is Lk? For a controller or fightstick messing around with the controller is enough to figure it out but for keyboard you have to go through every key to find the right one. You can’t rely on people knowing what the default keys are for a fighter like you can for a FPS so my suggestion is to have a popup showing the default keyboard configuration. This should only show up the very first time you boot up Skullgirls since you only need it once.
After they know the buttons there are three places and newbie can go: Tutorial, Story mode, and versus. For new players the tutorial is great and there are only a few suggestions. One is for Chp. 1 lesson 3 to let players pass only if they are able to hit the dummy with s.LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, and HK in order and indicate that they can see what button is being pressed on the bottom of the screen. This can teach players what button is what on their controller, a useful skill. Second suggestion is for the first quitting point for most players, the dreaded Defending Against Mixups chapter. One of their problems is that they try to react to the dash as well as the jump. Text reiterating that they don’t need to react to the dash, only the jump might help. Third is the combo lessons is Chp. 3 and 4. For a lot of new players it helps to actually see the combo performed before attempting it. Provide a replay of the combo like in guilty gear XRD.
For some new players the tutorial and the training mode is all that is required but most do not apply the lessons they learn in training mode to a real match if they even play the tutorial at all. What they do is play the story mode and in the story mode they can be taught how to play fighting games. The problem is that people can button mash all the way to the final boss. My suggestion to fix this is to include “impossible minibosses” into the story mode. Now when I say impossible minibosses I am not suggest infinite health autoblocking monsters, I am talking about opponents that cannot be defeated by simple button mashing.
An example for what I mean. Let us say that Filia's A.I. was modified to always Updo the opponent when in range, do a large combo if she has the meter for it, and bock at all other times. For people who are familiar with fighting games this Filia is easy to defeat but for someone who is new to fighting game they will get destroyed. Now here is the important part. For the people who beat Filia the first time the story continues as normal but for the people who get knocked out treat the loss as a continuation of the story. Have another A.I. controlled character come in to block and punish the Updo, and snap her out to set the stage for a tutorial lesson in the story mode. The lesson should be about how to block and punish DP’s and when they have demonstrated proficiency in the task send them out for a rematch. Now they will know how to fight against Filia and feel great about knocking her out. This can be repeated for other concepts in fighting games so that by the time they finish the story mode they have a rough understanding on how to play fighting games.
If they want to play with their friends it will be much harder to teach them but I can think of a few suggestions. Before going into any versus mode except tournament for the first time have a how to play text box pop up. The text box should include stuff like how to block, doing simple combos, and how to tag and do assist. For online matches there needs to be an explanation for GGPO. When a new person sees the GGPO suggestion they get confused and then when the match starts figure that whatever it was it wasn’t important and will lag terribly because they didn’t set it right. A detailed explanation will go a long way to help new people understand what GGPO delay they would want.
I know that a lot of these suggestions won’t get into Skullgirls because of time and money constraints but I hope some can be implemented. If anyone else has any more suggestion or criticism post it in this thread. Sorry for the long rambling post.
