What makes throw loops so insufferable is that the throw itself takes too long.
Fighting games at their core are real time games. The challenge is not just to make good decisions, but to make them quickly and precisely. Whenever players are given too much time to make their decision, the real time element is removed. It becomes a turn based game.
In a fully turn based game, even in relatively complex ones, playing from behind is not fun. There is no joy in a fruitless struggle. Have you ever played Monopoly? That’s the point of the game. To make you suffer. Strategy game designers are aware of this and (if they want the game to be fun) do everything they can to avoid putting players in prolonged positions of powerlessness. Once it’s clear who is going to win, the game ends.
Of course, in a turn based game, this is inevitable to some degree. Advantages must exist, and one must always wait for the opponent in a turn based game.
But in a fighting game, a genre that so clearly should be fast-paced and action packed, where the real-time element should be most emphasized, this problem should not exist. It’s not inherent to the genre. It’s a fixable problem.
Possible fixes
Once the problem is understood, the fixes are easier to see.
Only one of two things is required: either the situation after a throw must be more equalized (such that neither player is particularly on the back foot), or throws need to be a lot faster (at most 500 milliseconds).
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