I made a duplicate thread in the GGPO.net forums but I thought I’d post it here as well so as to get additional feedback from a different crowd.
I have a question about GGPO etiquette and gaming etiquette in general. I’m a nice guy (hint hint in case there are any women reading this), and being the conscientious guy that I am, I want to make sure I’m not ticking anyone off or being rude when I’m on GGPO or playing any other multiplayer games online. I’ll describe my circumstances and you can give me your opinion.
I’m relatively new to fighting games. I’ve played tons of Soul Calibur (2, 3 and 4) and I played Tekken back in the day, but other than that I’ve never really payed much attention to Street Fighter or any other 2D fighters. Recently I went out and bought all the best 2D fighters by Capcom, SNK, Aksys and Atlus, and right now I’m spending most of my time on the Street Fighter Alpha series. Strangely enough, my favorite character is Dan! Yes, I know he’s weak and considered a joke character but I just have a ton of fun playing as Dan. So be it.
My question is, would you consider it rude for me to be a novice player playing as Dan in GGPO against some potentially excellent players who wouldn’t want to waste their time with a guy just learning the ropes on a character who’s considered handicapped?
Let’s say I play a couple rounds as Dan and get beat both times, would you consider it rude for me to continue using the same character?
What about novices in general? Do you have a problem playing against people who are inexperienced and don’t present much of a challenge? Is there any way to flag myself as a novice so those expecting challenging matches can look elsewhere?
Me personally, I love playing against good players as this is the best way to improve your game, even though I’m :lame: at the moment.
A: Greet your opponent and be friendly! You’re both there to have fun, right?
B: Be tactful, obviously.
C: Let them know you’re leaving. Say ‘ggs’ at the VERY least. When someone randomly quits, it just leaves the other person confused and somewhat frustrated.
D: If the game crashed, let them know. People who ragequit don’t come back and apologize for their game for it. Give the opponent at least a respectful ‘Hey, sorry about that I crashed’ or something.
I don’t consider using the same character over and over to be rude or cheap. If you’re beating the opponent down, they likely want you to anyway so they can better learn your tricks and figure out how to win. Well…that’s me, anyway O_o.
I think that if you’re legitly trying hard, even if it’s with a handicapped character, then it’s fine by me. Even if i win every round, if I see you trying, then I’ll probably keep playing. If I don’t think the other person is even slightly enjoying it, tho, then I prolly won’t enjoy it.
what do good players think when theyre totally beasting someone?
the first time i played on 2DF i ended up playing ST against a decently well known player and i got pwned left and right. i think i only won 2 matches through luck. the guy didnt leave though even after it became obvious that he was good and i wasnt. i wonder what was going through his head, maybe i was the only one with decent ping or something.
Personally if I’m playing someone new or bad and they are sticking around, I’ll play them in a long set. Because I personally really appreciate it when I get the chance with a better player to actually get in a few games, rather than a few and they leave.
So usually I’m willing to drop a lot on someone if they want it.
If Dan’s the character you’re learning to play, then so be it. It can get annoying if an opponent picks the same character over and over and is a total one-trick pony with that character (not that hard to go to practice mode and figure out a few new tricks, honestly), but it’s not my place to tell my opponents what characters to play.
Playing novices isn’t too bad, it’s a bit like playing against the CPU… you can’t work on any tactics or mind games (a novice won’t fall for the kind of things a refined player will), but you can still work on execution, hit-confirms, combos… unless your opponent already has perfect execution, I’m sure he won’t mind playing a newbie if he gets some practice out of it.
Just be sure to talk and be polite… it’s much more bearable to beast the same person over and over when you know at least one of you is actually getting some benefit out of it
You can probably add on a (newbie) to the end of your name so others know you won’t be much of a challenge (don’t expect them to believe it until you’ve actually played a round, though).
Try something like Iori/Daimon/O-Yash team, abuse bugs over and over after you’ve shown you know how to deal with it, try to lag abuse roll and combo repeatedly, stuff like that.
Things that work great on scrubs but not on good players. If they show that’s all they know- in the arcade when I ran across guys like that I literally tried to make them cry. Now I just walk out- there’s no way to cost them their “suck tax” as I call it, so no fun in playing people like that.
Note: this doesn’t apply to people who are actually trying to improve/start trying something different. Just those who think the solution to their scrub tactics not working is to try their same one trick harder.
The difference between a scrub and a non-scrub is that when faced with their tactics not working, the scrub will keep trying the same thing, while the non-scrub will try something else, even if it doesn’t work. A weaker non-scrub I’ll try to teach and I’ll go easy on them some, the scrub I’ll just destroy as they won’t get better- so it’s best to try to give those sorts a good fear of you so they avoid you.
When I’m beating someone, I don’t care if he is good or not. I mean, I don’t try to humillate him or similar. I just play my best game always because I respect my opponent as player. No matter if the score is 15-0, always my best game.