Originally Posted by
Destin
Melee/Brawl is a great example! Beginning to Intermediate barely knew the difference, it is only at high level (I'm not a smash player, but this is how I have heard it explained) did you learn how to really move and cancel every attacks recovery. And then the game and movement really opened up. But nobody complained when they didn't know this (I sure didn't). It still felt like a complete game and I could more or less play with people who were doing the advanced stuff. And when I sorta learned it with Marth, it was great fun to suddenly have so much movement opened up to me. If I could just hold forwards and I had the same speed and movement, it would not have been as much fun.
A big stumbling block many people have that I tend to think of as a Sirlin complex, is confusing the purely mathematical side of the decision making in fighting games with the playing artistic side of it. Sirlin made a very interesting choice in HD remix somewhere along the way which made it clear to me the difference between the art of a fighting game, and the logic of a fighting game. He changed Yoga flame from hcb (63214) p, to qcb (214) p. It made sense, it was easier to do, matched his new high flame, and sim needed a quick way to do a fast high flame to deal with vega. Everything was very logical.
And he completely missed a large part of what made street fighter so great.
He logically changed a motion to qcb from a motion that was called "the yoga flame" for a generation. He missed why it is more rewarding to players of all levels to execute a move twice as far to get a bigger flame. Why that is intuitive and amusing. Your brain to a degree remembers it better. If I want a small flame, I do a quarter circle. If I want a BIGGER flame, I do a half circle.
This level of elegance that went into super turbo was ignored for very sensible reasons, and lost so much because of it. It didn't see the difference of it being a game of speed chess, and it being an immersive experience. It took something that perhaps couldn't be understood easily in argument by players, but made inherent sense to the designer. (I could have attacked the zangief 360 change to a pote buster, but that seemed too easy).
To bring this back for you, why is pushing a button important? Because instead of passively holding down something, you tap a button, and your character pops out. You push an action, and your character does an action. You feel in control. You are not just playing a mind-game, you are controlling a character, and the mind games are part of that. The experience is more immersive. Why should an FRC have a small window? Because it is a very special way of canceling. There is a root RC that exists for most of the moves that have frcs, you can do it, it costs 50% meter, and it feels normal. But if you want that special, extra good cancel, you have to do something that is a bit difficult. Just like your character would trying to get it just right. That feels better. It's the artistic side of the fighting game. It might be a bit forgotten or buried by players who play seriously for so many years (myself included), but it pulls you in, in ways you are probably not realizing.
Complexity of decisions is important, and great! It is very important to the longevity of the game. But playing a game that is merely a series of glorified nash equilibrium balances would not be for me, and luckily guilty gear is not that.
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