Ehhhhhhhhh... this is only true if discounting strategic skill and only thinking of execution, but that was kinda the main problem I brought up. For example, if you had many strategically nuanced choices at your disposal, but all of them were easy to do but not easy to use effectively at all times, then that is a high skill ceiling with low technical skill.
But that's the thing...how do you make them all easy to do without ruining the concept of the game? I already told you, at some point simplifying inputs will eventually just translate to simplifying and consolidating mechanics, which essentially just leads to a dumbed down game at best and a completely different game at worst.
I'm reminded of Tekken Revolution, that F2P tekken game that came out last generation that gave all characters a single button fully invincible attack. It DRASTICALLY lowered the skill floor of the game, but also lowered the ceiling because they introduced an option for the sake of simplicity for new players that undermined multiple CORE concepts that the game was built upon (high/low crushes, priority and advantage).
All of the characters movesets were the same. It was still Tekken. But suddenly winning required far less strategic thought because the game provided a shortcut to something that otherwise would have required knowledge and practice to achieve the same effect. Casuals loved playing the game, but that's where it ended.
Not at high level play it doesn't. If you aren't L-Cancelling, you aren't playing the game correctly at high level, because the only way for L-Cancelling to be effective is to use it at any point it can be used. Not so with a similar tech like wavedashing due to the downside of its slight startup causing you to be open. You do NOT wavedash at every opportunity you are able, and not wavedashing at the times doing wavedash would be the wrong choice is more effective play. L-Cancel is not this, because the correct way to use it is every time. I hope you get what I mean here.
You just said skill ceiling correlates to optimal play, a.k.a high level play. Of course it's not required to use at an average level, but skill ceiling doesn't come up there. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say you maybe misworded this, because it is counter to what you yourself said.
Of course you aren't playing the game correctly at high-level if you aren't L-cancelling.
High level play is for players who operate as close to optimal as possible. If you aren't striving to L-cancel every aerial then you aren't playing optimally, it's that simple. If you aren't doing it you are literally losing effectiveness. Wavedashing is no different, it's just that its application is more complex. A technique doesn't have to be applicable in every situation in order to be considered a high-level tech, in fact most high-level techs in fighting games are niche at best. It's not required to use at an average level, but it can nonetheless be used there -- it's not so difficult that an average player can't do it. An average player who learns about L-cancelling can still use it to their advantage even if they aren't perfect at it.
Most of us didn't know because the game never told us. This is another thing that that video seems to really misunderstand, and that's the importance of the game telling you what your tools are and how to best use them. Tutorials are only a good thing, and the way fighting games do tutorials is, for the most part, horrendous.
And you say the advantage you get for doing it goes up the better you get at it? I bring back my point that skill ceiling is not just about technical execution-based skill. Shorthop and wavedashing are not things you want to do all the time. There is such a thing as a bad use of wavedash, so the idea that the skill ceiling rides solely off of the difficulty to execute these maneuvers is just not true. If wavedashing was a button press, a bad player would be able to use it easily, lowering the skill floor, but only an experienced player would know when to use it, thus not changing the skill ceiling at all.
I agree with you that fighting game tutorials are horrendous. But even in games like GGXRD which explains ALL of its engine mechanics to you (and drills you on them), it doesn't mean average players will pay attention or even care. I knew about wavedashing in Melee but i didn't care about it because i didn't see the point. It wasn't until i started playing fighting games and strived to get an edge on my opponents that I even bothered to learn.
And you say the advantage you get for doing it goes up the better you get at it? I bring back my point that skill ceiling is not just about technical execution-based skill. Shorthop and wavedashing are not things you want to do all the time. There is such a thing as a bad use of wavedash, so the idea that the skill ceiling rides solely off of the difficulty to execute these maneuvers is just not true. If wavedashing was a button press, a bad player would be able to use it easily, lowering the skill floor, but only an experienced player would know when to use it, thus not changing the skill ceiling at all.
No....the skill ceiling would drop. Because there is no longer a barrier to execution, thus the technique is easier to do, thus optimal play is easier to reach.
If you can pick it up and do it without having to practice, it means it takes less skill to do. That's....kind of a defining characteristic of "skill".
This is far more important than you let on, because ignoring high level play when figuring out how the basics of the game works means eventually, the higher up the skill levels you go, the more the game morphs into something it is not designed to be. Case in point, every Smash game. The thing is that it is just better overall to have a low skill floor for a competitive game, but also to base that low skill floor off of the high level players.
This is abhorrently false and i feel like Smash Ultimate's seemingly universal success should be serving as a testament to just how wrong this is. High level play has nothing to do with low level or casual play. It looks like a different game because it
IS a different game, and in any event where casual and high level play look similar, then something has likely gone very wrong. High level play is for people who practice, theorycraft, train, strive to get better, optimize their gameplay, share findings with others, and most importantly,
who are encouraged by loss and the struggle to acquire mastery instead of discouraged.
And here's the truth: The skill floor doesn't have
anything to do with the ceiling because the people who are closer to either side
generally have nothing to do with one another. If you're close to the skill floor, then you and I likely aren't playing for the same core reasons. Just because you play to win doesn't mean you strive for mastery, even if you
think you do.
Because if you did, then you wouldn't be concerned with how high the skill ceiling is...you'd only be concerned with getting closer to it.
This is the true heart of competition, and the true genius of Smash as a series -- it's ability to have both at the same time without one affecting the other. The reason some people don't understand this is because they completely ignore the journey (slowly learning and getting better) because they're only interested in the destination. (WOMBO COMBO EVO MOMENT LOOK AT MY SICK 0 DEATH COMBO)
This is because video games are not the same as sports, in terms of design anyway. Sports involve physical attributes of the human body to be taken into account, and put at the forefront of the sport's design. We would not have soccer fields that were a mile long in real life, yet if we wanted to make a competitive soccer-like game with a mile long field in a video game, it would be easy as hell to make.
I honestly don't understand why people want to treat the design of competitive video games to be on the same pedestal as physical sports. If anything, video games can become greater than physical sports precisely because of the much lower physical barrier.
Because there is no fundamental difference.
You're just applying your same qualms with Esports (technical barriers) to real sports (physical barriers) as your reasoning for why you don't like it. And i've already explained why you feel that way. You have more fun with
feeling like you're at the top than you have fun with
actually getting there.
And people always cry "elitism!" when someone says that.....but it's the truth. It's just the truth. And there's nothing wrong with that, thats why casual sports, esports, twitch, speedrunning, it's why all of this exists, why it's a billion dollar industry, and why it's so fun to participate in and watch.
People just feel like Esports is different because you're playing a videogame, where the developers could
technically just give you one-button skill if they wanted to....but having to earn the right to call yourself skillful is the whole point of competitive fighting games, Esports, and just sports in general. If they did that then it would literally defeat the purpose.
TBH the whole "but what about the casuals!" thing just baffles me in this modern age of gaming....it's like, everyone became so mesmerized with competitive fighting games and the fact that these players got
so good at something you didn't even realize was so deep...and then turn around complain about how deep and difficult it is to do. It's the most ridiculous trend gaming has ever done for me. It just makes no sense lol.
Like....these days, Melee's history has been warped into this super ridiculous technical game. But when it actually came out, everyone who complained about it played it as if it was any other smash game. It didn't
magically transform into a different game after the competitive scene evolved....it's just that people's perception of it did. Because now that people knew what high-level players could do, they were no longer are allowed to have delusions about how good they were against their friends in their local neighborhood.
edit:
ayy this sounds angry but i promise its not lol
