Do modern games make it easier to perform special moves?

Chukz15

I'm playing some old fighting games on my Ps3 and on GGPO, and one thing that is consistant is that pulling off any specials are too damn hard! Trying to link things are a pain as well. Do QCF/QCB motions get easier int he newer games such as MVC3/SSF4.

petran79

you have also to consider that controllers and joysticks get more polished and more ergonomic with time.
those games had mostly joysticks full of ashes, grease, oil (from dirty fingers,not service) and whatever you could imagine and very often no one made service to them and they were ready to be detached or break during play.

also each game has different timings. you cant jump straight from one game to another without getting used to it.
 
I wouldnt say they got easier, it is just that more care has been taken thanks also to user feedback

Narcowski

By and large yes, but it varies by game.

Chaosed

Yah I would say that they have gotten a fair amount easier in a certain sense. All of these games have different input timings, once you adjust to it pulling specials off should be just as easy. Fighting games simply have continued to become more polished and refined based on developer experience/player feedback.

In my opinion I find if I play a decent amount of older fighting games in a solid chunk it is a lot more frustrating to go back to the newer ones then the other way around.

klaww

I'd say not.  I can just as easily do dragon punches and hadoukens on my genesis as my stick on ps3.

Kikuichimonji

Yes. In multiple ways. Time you get to do the motion and leniency of motion are both larger in newer games.

Outrospectre

Sort of. Super Turbo had an inconsistent input window for dragon punches, and on the faster speed, the game ran really freaking fast, which made the input windows narrow. SF4 has a number of features that make inputs easier, like shortcuts (a HCF can be performed with DB F instead of B DB D DF F, a dragon punch can be performed with DF D DF instead of F D DF, 360s used to take 7 directions but now take 6.)

People tend to over-exaggerate this a bit, though. It's not that hard to do motions in older games, nor is it as lenient as people sometimes imply for SF4. The buffer duration is still well under a second, but people talk as if it lasts ages.

Krackatoa

There's 27 different ways to input DP in SFIV. That's not really exaggeration.

RaishinX

How are there ppl saying no?

Things now are like twice as easy (e.g. ST - SF4)

The timings were tighter and had many inconsistencies back then. Now there are multiple shortcuts everywhere.

eltrouble

Older games generally had less input leniency, shortcuts, reversal windows were shorter, plinking wasn't always around in the early days, and game speed was much faster.  Therefore, as a blanket statement, inputs were much harder to land consistently in the old days than newer games.  

A kid suffering from epilepsy could mash out a reversal DP 10/10 on accident.  In newer versions of SF2, a reversal DP meant hitting a 1-frame link that you cannot plink with near-perfect execution of the DP motion.