Melty Blood: Actress Again Current Code launched on Steam not even 3 full weeks ago(at the time of this writing) and the online community is already a total ghost town. With such an anticipated launch for such a vaunted classic fighting game, it seems like this would be a total impossibility. Unfortunately, reality is much more unkind than most people would like to accept. So how did this happen? I suspect there are at least 2 main reasons: Old "pro" players at the game and hyperbolic discrediting of the game's online viability.
Previous versions were mostly all pirated and due to this it was not able to reach as wide an audience as it otherwise could have. The game was played, and supported, by a dedicated community behind the scenes using message boards/groups, and a third party tool that allowed network play(I have never used it but it is allegedly good).
The first issue I'll touch on is the older and more experienced
community that is behind this game. I am sure these people were more
than thrilled to finally have a world-wide legitimate release of this
game. Think of the influx of potential new players! The problem with a game like this, with such a late world-wide release, is that the skill-gap between new players and experienced players is quite large. This game boasts a sizeable cast at 31 characters, and if you include all 3 moon variants, it's a staggering 93! That is a TON of matchups.
What is "wrong" with this specifically, is that a lot of the more experienced players will basically destroy anyone that's new. Whether they be a sloppy/new/unskilled player in general, or if they are familiar with fighters but have no matchup experiences with any of the characters in the game. This is not all together unexpected, of course. More experience should yield more wins. However, to really drive this point home, a lot of these players will win and immediately change to a new character. What this does is it alters the matchup repeatedly so the newbie is unable to learn anything. It creates a black-hole of losses and eventual discouragement. Not to mention the implied insult of someone who is able to kick your teeth in with seemingly anyone in the cast. *Note: This phenomenon is not specifically tied to just this game but every fighter. It is one of the most frustrating things about picking up a fighting game "late" and being "shown" how much you suck. Late often times means you did not import the game and waited on a localized release.
The second issue is the netcode. Is it netplay? It sure as hell is! Netplay sucks! In general it sucks because local is just objectively better. However, does that necessarily mean that this game is the totally unplayable garbage the "pro" community would have you believe? Far from it I am afraid. In fact, I have played about 200~ish games and most of them have been fairly viable. This is coming from someone who has ONLY netplay available. Trust me, it is not that bad. Are there some real shitty connections here and there? Of course, it's netplay! Is it console KoF13 or Aquapazza levels of bad? Not even remotely close.
There has been so much outrage over the supposed "poor" quality of the netcode that I have read many posts from people who said they would just outright dodge the game entirely. That doesn't even count the amount of people who read that and neither posted about it nor purchased it. Hell, there was a thread going around before the game even launched that was basically teasing the idea of tearing the community in half if the netcode wasn't good.
There is hope that they will allegedly be improving the netcode using something similar to the bootleg's version. Will this help? Probably not. Most people will either no longer care, or forget about it. Or, they will just jump on the next big thing like flies on shit. Such is the way of the FGC. The community is already approaching non-existant. I am in the waiting rooms upwards of an hour without games. Often times I am the only room open too.
Unfortunately, the damage done to this game and its release may be critical. I will keep on streaming it for a while but I am not holding out hope. I usually have my stream running so I can hopefully communicate with the other players. Hardly anyone utilizes that, though, and the in-game chat function is extremely limited.
*****
Things to take away from this: If you like your game and want people to play it, support and encourage them. Do NOT kick their ass with every character in the cast. You alter the matchup repeatedly and stack the deck against them. It is impossible to learn to play any game in this manner. So stop being a dick and help out your fellow players instead of taking a crap on them and treating them like they don't deserve to be in the community.
Also, if you want your game to succeed and reach as many people as possible, do not shit all over it. ESPECIALLY in its launch period. People will take that to heart and dodge the game and forget about it completely. This game is perfectly playable and very functional currently. Most people absolutely will not burn the midnight oil in super-niche communities looking for games on a bootleg version. They are far too lazy for that. Take it from me: I love this game(even though I'm totally new to it) but there is no way in HELL I am going to support it in only back channels and Skype/Discord groups.
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