How is there not a GB West video series about teaching someone to play fighting games?

OK, the simple answer is probably that "nobody in particular wants to learn and they have other video series in mind", but every now and then I still consider the question in the thread title.

Especially with the current staff, we have Jason and Ben, both of whom have decent familiarity with some recent fighting games and sometimes have the time to learn them in a competitive sense. And I still remember Drew's unofficial Youtube stream where he started playing Rising Thunder, and people would gradually explain to him the basics of fighting games, and it was really heartwarming and interesting to watch him pick up and appreciate the concepts as he gained a better understanding of them.

I guess such a video feature would have a really nebulous end goal of "keep playing until you get good" or something, and I don't know who the prospective student would be except perhaps Brad, but it's a feature I wish would exist in one form or another. I think it has potential, even as a feature with a finite number of episodes (like Abby's features tend to have) where they just see how much fighting game can be taught in 5-10 episodes. Or I wish they would at least do a Ranking of Fighters more than once a millennium, because c'mon now.

While the idea is sound, the comments would be an absolute nightmare. A wrong explanation of a mechanic would bring calls for catapulting Ben into the sun.

Just buttonmash like every other game.

They're all scientists there

This is a great idea, it should be like that old Teach Me Monster Hunter, Jason but who would it feature? Rorie? Jan?

Is it just me or do they often skip the "audience surrogate" thing when they cover fighting games? I watched the "Dragon Ball FighterZ Warm UpZ" video and it felt like all the basic dumb questions were all lore related or questions relating to that specific match.

I just wished they explained what the buttons do or compares to street fighter, mortal kombat or maybe guilty gear. Maybe it's the problem with fighting games that it's not clear at all what the players are doing if you are just watching a video unlike most FPS games or platformers, I also bet it's also more tricky to talk while you are playing the game. Still, having someone who haven't played it in the video might help.

It feels like every fighting game quick look goes right over my head except maybe Ranking of Fighters.

@csl316: Whatever would make you think that? Maybe they could have Brad be a staple on it. Nobody ever complains about Brad's gameplay skills.

Kidding aside, I would love this, but I agree with you. Also, it seems like they have a tough enough time staying on top of the Ranking of Fighters for whatever reason, so I imagine this one would die a quick death too, sadly.

Just want Ranking of Fighters to comeback. Feel like they continual hint at it. Thought it would come back once they got Jan in. Gotta know what the 2490 best fighting game is.

Harshly put? I don't think any of them feel they are good enough at them to teach people fighting games. The nature of their job also means it's hard to do truly deep dives.

There are many videos out there already where high level players explain games and teach them to their viewers.

Beyond the need to find someone who is fairly unfamiliar with the genre but genuinely wants to get under the hood of how they work, I don't think anyone feels really has the depth of knowledge and command of detail to authoritatively teach and sustain a fighting game clinic series. A short series could be good fun, but I'd imagine it would put on lot of pressure on Jason and Ben to brush up on fighting game lingo and concepts to make sure they don't look like poseurs.

Also that.

Teaching aside, I don't know that anybody out West has any interest in learning. I feel like Jeff understands a lot of the fundamental concepts etc but I reckon he's pretty happy where he's at and would honestly prefer to continue to play the games the way he does now rather than sit in training mode and practice setups or anything like that. I also think Brad is perfectly happy with jumping around in Mortal Kombat II the way he does now and I figure he's about the only other person with any passing interest in the genre.

It was fun watching Vinny pick stuff up in the Soul Calibur edition of This Is The Run, learning about Guard Impacts etc, and he appeared to figure out some of the paper-scissors-rock aspect of 8-way run beats vertical attack beats horizontal attack beats 8-way run. Or at the very least, he realised side-stepping was good because Dan was mostly using vertical attacks. I bet Vinny could have gotten decent at that game fairly quickly if he'd just had one character to learn and maybe one matchup to learn, instead of having to know a bit about using every character versus every character. There was a lot of getting the right read on a sidestep or GI or something, but then just having no idea how to capitalise on it. I think it'd be fun to watch somebody teach Vinny a fighting game, he's pretty good at the mindgame aspect. Maybe something along the lines of Rising Thunder with less emphasis on execution etc. That new Sirlin game, maybe. Fantasy Strike or something? It was always fun watching Vinny play Nidhogg. He got so much mileage out of the divekick/roll mixup.

I will also say, while it's not really the same thing, I remember the comments on the Soul Calibur videos being nice, offering support and advice and the like.

If you're worried that your glasshearted 'internet friend' would be corrected blasted with hatespeech if he made an error, then I have good news for you. There are people out there who make videos about fighting games and are way more knowledgeable about fighting game mechanics than anyone at GB. Like Maximilian Dood, for example. So rest assured, everyone at GB is safe.

@sethmode: they’re just settling into the new...

I think also the main thing is that not everyone can or wants to teach. Maybe Jason doesn’t feel up to the task? I knew some brilliant people that were excellent in their fields but were terrible when it came to teaching that same knowledge which came so easily to them. Also agree that comments would be a death trap even on this site. The monster hunter videos are already full of people saying Jason is using his weapon all wrong etc etc. I’m sure reading that stuff doesn’t exactly entice anyone to make more tutorial videos.

I learned so much from the Drew stream, it was really amazing. A communal intro to fighting games live. Before I watched that stream I had very little understanding of any of the mechanics in fighting games. I had no idea there was so much depth in it. I would watch the hell out of some "learn to fighting games" videos from these folks.

Could they call this feature "Training the Fighters"? It could be a neat feature, but the only two people the West Coast would train are Brad and Rorie, and I don't think either have a deep desire to get better at Fighting games.

I'm in, but only if it's Brad.

As a person currently seriously learning a fighting game for the first time, I think a series like this would have to be incredibly well planned and produced in order to be interesting. Like obviously this will differ depending on what game is featured I guess but if it ends up anything at all like my experience it's gonna be a lot of the person learning just grinding out muscle memory by making the same mistakes for long periods at a time, at which point there's only so much advice you can give before you clear that hump to the next stage. The first couple of episodes would probably be really good because that can be spent explaining fundamentals which is interesting stuff but so much of what comes immediately after that is just practicing to internalize those concepts which, unless you're incredibly gifted, is gonna look like a lot of hours just practicing.

Certainly not impossible to make interesting but I'd say probably very hard. If they focused on a low-execution game like Fantasy Strike, or if Rising Thunder was still around, then maybe it could be somewhat easier but in my (admittedly limited) experience so much of the learning process is just getting match experience and learning matchup knowledge which would take a lot of knowledge and/or prep work to teach and articulate well.

@bisonhero: No-one at Giant Bomb is good enough at fighting games to be teaching other people how to play fighting games. You'd need a fighting game pro for that.

I played a lot of fighting games on the SNES when I could sit on the couch next to a friend, have fun, and pull off a Subzero ice blast. I didn't know how deep things got. Since then I've played a handful of fighting games, but they generally aren't worth the money to me because my friends now just complain that I'm mashing buttons and refuse to play. They are no better, but it's a barrier to playing, makes it no fun. So I don't know if I would benefit from a video series like this. I just want to have fun first, then maybe I'd be willing to learn the depths I didn't grasp when I was 8.