There is a big push in the fighting game community right now to make fighting games accessible to newcomers. I believe this is essential to growing the community and a really great idea, especially with the history of fighting games appealing to only the hardcore few. Only the arcade tested greats would be the ones to dominate their friends on console, the legends tell us. However, as developers move towards the easier execution, we are actually sacrificing a common and important mechanic in fighting games that not very many people talk about: the combo drop.
Fighting games are different than most other video games in that 100% of the game is available to you instantly, save some colors and possibly DLC content. Besides that, you have all of the characters and all of their tools instantly. No leveling up your character to get the best weapon, the highest level, new magic or tools. Therefore, learning new combos, techniques and setups is the only way to level up with your character. Much of this is a topic for another day.
Now that developers are making combos easier and easier to do, leveling up your own game is much faster and the vision is clear that they don't see the act of doing the combo as necessary for the game to be fun. I actually agree with this. Much of Super Smash Bros, in particular, Smash Wii U is extremely simple. All specials and normals are the equivalent in execution to command normals in other games and yet there is still enough strategy and skill to develop. These are controversial games within the fighting game community (although they shouldn't be), but despite individual opinion of the games we can see how simplifying execution can lead to a satisfying and deep fighting game despite not needing to learn long and advanced combos.
As I have stated, I am not an opponent to the recent attempts at lowering the execution barrier in fighting games. However, we are n danger of losing a beautiful fighting game mechanic: the accidental combo drop. This is especially easy to talk about with regards to beginners. If you and a friend are just starting out in a game, there are going to be loads of combo drops and execution errors. The moment you drop a combo, it can create a lot of important scenarios. It can create a comeback point for the one being comboed. It can create a mentally neutral moment for both players because it was unexpected for both players. It becomes a known weakness for both players. Something one player can learn to punish, and something the other player learns better execution for. These are just a few ways to look at it from a beginners perspective.
Now, we can look at the competitive level and why combo drops are still important. When I was just beginning fighting games, a really great tutorial series by Vesper Arcade told me that the pro players execution was 100%. I have seen probably 1000 hours or more of competitive play and that is NOT TRUE. I cannot count the amount of times I've seen execution errors and accidental combo drops at the absolute highest level of play. They are far more rare than at the lowest level, but they are still common enough that it continues to be part of the game.
These combo drops at the highest level can create really great moments, especially as a spectator. In SFV, these moments are more rare that they used to be, but in SFIV and UMVC3, for example, they actually developed strategies. In UMVC3 the "American Reset" is a term for dropping the combo and reseting the damage scaling because of an accidental drop. In SFIV, I remember a very specific example of Bonchan (Sagat) vs Sako (Ibuki). Ibuki, and in particular Sako, relied on one-frame-links in order to deal the most damage and stun. Bonchan would just mash uppercut while being comboed when being hit by the one frame links because even Sako would drop them reasonably often. The higher execution barrier (maybe too high) developed this extra layer of strategy that a much lower execution barrier does not and will not allow for.
There are positive and negatives to the execution barrier being lowered in fighting games but I think there is a middle ground that can be reached. I believe that SFV, despite the problems that many people see in the game, has come closest to reaching a perfect level of execution. It is easy enough that a new player can learn good combos on day 1 and deep enough that you can lab out the more difficult ones with certain characters. I am excited for the development of new fighting games with all different levels of execution and the newcomers that will learn to love all of them. However, I want people to remember all aspects of fighting games that make them exciting and fun to play and spectate.
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