Yeah I have never had to really wait to get a match in, ever. North American Eastern time here, so I’m pretty central timezone-wise, but even at weird hours I always get matches.
I play ranked a lot, not because of e-peen, but rather because it’s the best way to actually play lots of matches. In the usual six player room, even if there’s good players you’re just stuck waiting for longer than playing. Meanwhile in ranked you just mash A as fast as possible and you immediately get into another match, no downtime required.
No doubt. I posted in the SF3 Online thread that it would be nice to have set-ups where one lobby has multiple concurrent games. With 6 players, there really should always be 2 games going on.
PSN has a NICE bug… when you use Quick Match feature, only works for 1 on 1 lobbies lol, you can have a lot of fun and matches just using that buggy feature and of course is free of lag and dc(ask any psn user).
Yeah Zero I almost never have to wait at all to find games in player matches so Im thinkin its more like the American players prolly not joinin your lobbies cause of the ping like Aqua Snake said…
I dont think so… I dont even think the majority of PSN players would agree with you on that one lol…
Not to turn it into a XBL v. PSN argument but I agree!
-2 best players overall in Snake Eyez and Afro Legends
-Best Honda in Thelo
-Best Bison in yuuvega
-Best Cammy in Mongolo
-Best Blanka in BTC
-Best Fei in Jumpsuit
-Best Ken in damdai, westcyde
-Best Guile in Muteki
We have everyone pretty much, not to mention other really damn good players such as Billjmninja, Fulaani, Sharizord, and so forth. Heck, we even have Haru Tejyo! I’m sure PSN has a great amount of awesome players, but I firmly believe XBL has the superior talent. Maybe I’m wrong but this is something we’ll probably never know. I can say with great confidence that Reno, Philcito, OGMole, and Ego definitely know how to play HDR - so that side of PSN is looking mighty good.
I own both system & i notice PS3 dont get the same amount traffic as XBL…
My gief is average but when i play on PS3 i seem to dominate more, the only guy that is in another level is EST-1991…Everyone else is just really solid players but cant dominate a room…Also a couple of the All-star PSN players have XBL accounts too.
^ I think this is it really. As the stats and many other people’s experiences show - including mine - this game is still really popular online. I almost never have to wait for a game in player matches as I am usually playing evening-time in the UK (often very late) which also brings me in touch with a lot of the USA players - where the biggest playerbase is by far IMO.
I think Zero1 your problem is that unfortunately you often play at the deadest time for XBL
The big problem with HDR’s online setup for me is the no-ping/regional matchmaking though (along with skill-based matchmaking, but it’s not so much a problem for me or anyone on SRK here I imagine, but it is a huge problem for new players). I used to enjoy playing ranked far more for the exact same reason Thelo describes, but I realised even during the beta, that it would constantly give me unplayable matches if I lived in the UK and either created a match or used “quick match”, so the only option was to sit there constantly hitting refresh to join a game with a decent ping, hoping I could get in there before someone else did. It was (and still is) incredibly frustrating, which is why I only play player matches now and I almost always create 3-4 player rooms, any bigger than that gets boring waiting for me.
Just to add to this… I did really enjoy playing Ranked Matches to see how high I could get on the leaderboard because it was the only measure I originally had of how I was progressing.
If you don’t have tons of friends to try to beat or know (or care) about any offline events, I can really understand why people find a ranking system fun - it is! It’s what these guys would call the long-term incentive. I completely understand why people want that leaderboard incentive to keep playing.
The other obvious reason is Achievements. I hadn’t looked at the Achievements for HDR in a long time until last night, and then I was looking with a friend to see if she would could have fun trying to get any of them… and I noticed how the majority of them are for playing Ranked Match only. This would be great if ranked matched was matchmade properly, but as mentioned above, it isn’t, so these Achievements end up being bad design, purely because the ranked match system is such bad design.
Don’t get me wrong, ranked is a good idea to try and see where you are; what I was referring to was casual gamers who play a few games thinking they are gonna get high up the boards, fail and quit for good.
No problem, I get what you mean, but HDR is veeery bad for that kind of gamer anyway, especially because it has one of the few true skill-based non-grindable ranking systems around - which is one reason I actually used to enjoy it and care about it. However I actually think the best approach (as mentioned in those links) to appeal to more kinds of people is a hybrid one like StarCraft II where it uses a real skill ranking system, but hides it behind some partially grindable leagues - but you still need to do well to actually rise very much in those leagues. But even a crap player like me could theoretically grind out the #1 spot in Bronze league without ever really improving my skill much - it’s unlikely but just about possible.
Unfortunately fighting games are years behind other games when it comes to catering to non-hardcore players; they really don’t do nearly enough. This is sad for everyone though, even the hardcore guys like yourself. I’m putting all the links here to save repeating myself - this stuff is so damned applicable to SF2 HDR it really makes me sad as it’s my favourite competitive game yet could and should be SO much better and accessible. SF2 has a great headstart because the actual game mechanics are already way more accessible than almost any other fighting game… yet it’s great mechanics are just diluted into other games which actually have far less widespread appeal (if you think SFIV is popular, take a look at the sales figures of SF2 or Smash sometime!). All this is all applicable to the Pro vs Hobby debate ongoing on the srk podcasts. The Pro side won’t ever be sustainable without a huge casual grassroots interest in a game.
Remy and that article he gave the link to have brought very interesting points. I agree with them. In fact, I felt almost as if I could have written it, apart from the competency in wording the ideas nicely. In a nutshell, I believe the importance of top players as top players is the importance the game’s player base gives them, or closely related. I also believe the life of a game depends more on the casual players than the top ones. A player base, if large enough, can provide replacements for top players (see a few Japanese ST players like Seki), but not the other way around.
Well, the article is related to my view as it concerns maintaining the player base. Unfortunately, most people will not see facing a better player as a chance of learning of even checking new tricks first hand, but they will understand it as a pointless beat-down, possibly related to lack of depth or even (in their view) blatant game flaws. In the end, it is better to have these players facing others of similar skill/knowledge so that they are not forced to play matches they have no chance of winning.
Hey Zero, I think a lot of XBlive HDR players are just gone for the moment. HDR is here to stay and at least I am not abandoning the game. Just because I don’t play it atm doesn’t mean I won’t in like 3-4 months. A lot of stuff can detract you from playing the greatest game ever over and over again but it’s still you know… the greatest game ever
Good post Tschesae, I tend to agree that most of players will have other commitments that keep them away from time to time but will eventually come back.
I think it will be hard for hdr to attract new players when capcom are busy with the sf4 series, most of us who are dedicated hdr players are probably teens back in the 90’s when sf2 was the craze
i dont know about yuu being better then demaverick, when he use to play hdr i seen him and yuu in the room playing and, maverick would beat him like everytime. but i heard that his playing ssf4 now only too bad,
Never go by whoever wins mirror matches to determine who is the best. De Mavrick may beat him in mirror matches, but there are 15 other matchups to consider when talking “who is best”. That’s not to question Mavrick’s skill, I’m just saying to consider who is the most consistent in all the matchups.
^ That’s EXACTLY what I always say, Zero! I’ve heard some instances where people have tried to determine who the better player is through mirror matches, yet a player’s skill should be determined based on overall handling of all the match-ups.
