If you were a top player in the FGC

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
21

Make the community more open and inviting for new players. The world of competitive fighting games is intimidating and daunting to people who aren’t used to it.

My friend Slappy started up a website for local play here in Grand Rapids. We have twenty or so members that show up regularly to weekly ranbats and casuals, and another ten or so that come and go. Many of these started out as brand new to the fighting game genre with Street Fighter IV, and because guys like Slappy and Smurf were patient and open to teaching them, we have a fairly competitive local community with a wide variety of characters and styles instead of the seven or eight hardcore guys we had previously. As a result, we’ve all had to step up our game, and everyone has benefited from it.

Up until very recently, the fighting game scene has been insular and almost hostile to new players. If we want interest in our hobby to grow, we need to allow for new blood and new ideas. Top players can use their status as a way to reach out to new people through podcasts, websites, blogs, streaming events, and videos in order to generate interest, and hopefully inspire players to get over their preconceptions and become active participants instead of just watching. Growing the community is something that everyone benefits from, and it’s something that hasn’t been a priority until recently.

22

Sounds like politics

-Push for more tournaments in round robin format. This is more attractive to beginners/novices since they get more from their money. More entrants(given that they know what round robin is).

-Push for more respect of competitive fighting games among the competitive videogame community; integration that doesn’t leave a bad taste in the mouths of the fighting scene.

-Complain about fighting games less. Unfortunately, I love complaining about fighting games. But the opinion of high-level players is infectious, with little regard to how accurate it is.

23

We pretty much started the same thing when IV came out and we have Ranbats every six weeks or so and casuals every week.

Started with a handful and now we get over thirty for the Ranbats and other comps.

24

with high amounts of money involved, cheating’s inevitable. sry didn’t mean anything more than that

25

I’m in no way a top player in my own little FGC, but I like to contribute with more information on the game as well as teach some of the newer people how to play. I’m a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure player, so the game is probably gonna be a “wtf is that” for most people seeing as how it was never mainstream, but I try to do what I can. I made an entry in the SRK wiki, held some online tournaments, and even been getting the game hyped and adding quite a few new JJBA heads into our ranks. I’m thinking of finally getting some offline sessions going for our scene and hopefully one day this game will have a tournament scene in the USA.

Of course, this is all completely unrelated to SFIV. I’ve nothing to contribute on that matter, but the title does say FGC, so that should be general enough for my lil speal…

26

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a game where you should link people to original manga first, then get them to the game itself so fanservice factor will smooth their transition.

27

Maybe they’ll play the game like a month later once they get through the entire manga. ><

Seriously though, I would tell anybody to read Jojos. ANYBODY. I don’t care if you’re blind, READ IT.

28

I think providing the type of insight into the games only top players can offer and teaching the mindset you need to be successful in the game is all we should ask. You don’t need to be a top player to be a community promoter/organizer and I don’t think our top players should feel responsible for growing the community on top of keeping up their skills. Kobe isn’t the chairman of the NBA.

I think the most important knowledge top players can give to aspiring players isn’t the technical knowledge of games (which isn’t something you need a top player for anyway), but explaining the less concrete concepts like momentum, training regime, mindset, etc. which I think haven’t been communicated well in past attempts.

29

yeah!

for everyone who doesn’t know about Cicada’s channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Cicada1337#grid/user/2890EF4C9025315F

30

i’m not a top player, but i made this:

i think its very rare for someone, like valle, to be doing both. i always thought top players and community fostering were two kinds of people that depended on each other. i believe top players dont need to contribute much except for playing in the tournaments, and representing their regions and building hype. Other players and forums do enough of teaching people and getting people interested in the game.

31

I’m the farthest thing from a top player but I’ve definitely seen Valle’s contributions first hand and can cite all the benefits to the community.

Fight Nights. Just about any day of the week, if you’re in LA, Socal you can find someone hosting a fight night with top players sparring. THese continued sessions keep the knowlege of the game growing, the appreciation of the skill and mind games,the exercise, the opportunity to learn what new strategies are going to take you out.

Words of wisdom. Ed Ma said, “Know the game better.” He couldn’t be more right. Watson said, “Losing is for faggets.” Shgl says, “Check ya ass.” Whatever it is, the words that rally for better perfomance help us get pumped. Listening in on a few of Valle’s lectures gave me deeper insight to the mind of a serious player. Gooteck’s and Justin Wongs blogs provided plenty of food for thought.

Winning. When it comes down to it, top players ARE doing what they do to help the community. Placing in tournaments, stomping the competition. Giving other players that vistory to strive for, that’s what keep everyone getting better. Keep the hype train rolling!

32

You just help design sticks for the rest of us non-modding folk to use :tup:

If I was a top player, I wouldn’t snub people; I’d try to offer as much advice as possible.

And build up a massive friend list for my PS3 so I’d never have to play random online matches again :lol:

33

Write a book.

34

I think the greatest thing a top player can do is play players who are worser than him/her, because that way you’re teaching them just by playing. Other than that I would watch Training Day more obviously.

35

Just do the opposite of whatever gootecks did last year.

36

Agreed. Either that or a series of articles discussing high level concepts and mindsets.

37

Read The Art of War.

38

This is probably gonna end up being a pretty big tl;dr type post and I could probably down size a huge bit but I figure I’d give some input.

First and foremost, I’m a gamer that enjoys fighting games. I’m smack dab right in the middle of SoCal (Pomona) and I have been living here all my life (I’m currently 24). From my point of view, I’m not really much of anything. I’m a long time reader, first time poster of things. I don’t really go out of my way to hit up the tourney scene nor do I really hit any arcades nowadays, even with AI just being a meer 5 minutes away from where I live. I don’t even play online all that much in SF4 or GGPO. I’m, for all intents and purposes, just a regular gamer that enjoys fighting games.

Names like Valle, Tomo, Watson and so forth are names that I’ve only read about. Back when magazines (I think it was either Gamepro or Tips and Tricks?) covered tournaments like SF2 and the Alpha series, they were really names that I just think to myself “They’re out of my league” or “I shouldn’t bother” etc etc. It’s kinda like there’s a community there but am I good enough to be in that community?

I knew I wanted to progress in my game. I wanted to play fighting games and I wanted to do so in a way that I can improve myself and be better because I felt that it could also improve me as a human. The thing is I never really bothered at being “the best” because the mountain just felt so steep, so high, so unreachable. I was intimidated. That probably held me down from exceeding my current limits, I still feel that now.

Then came 2008 and 2009. I was still a spectator to all things. I was playing SF3:3S a little more than casual and for the most part, my interest in fighting games was hitting high levels. I never really had the guts to join tournaments but at this time, this is when I felt like I truly appreciated fighting games and the members of the community.

2008 was the time where we were waiting for the release of STHD. The art was delayed, Sirlin rebalanced the game, a lot of us waited. The Beta came out and Capcom was taking in suggestions, ideas and input on the STHD. Prior to this, I played a bit of GGPO when it was only SFA2 and I was speechless at to how the online play was. I wanted that for STHD and so did everyone else. I gave my input to Capcom, I played a bit with some of the SRK members, I felt pretty happy about myself.

Then I got an e-mail from Capcom stating that they wanted me for some more feedback while playing with Derek from Capcom… and then I was tossed into an online room with CigarBob, Sabre and a few other peeps. Again, I’m one of those long time readers, first time poster/caller type peeps who will ring in from time to time. It might not seem much to other people but at the time, I was like “oh shi-, I know these guys” and I felt really friggen small to these guys. But I think at that moment, and they probably don’t remember me or much of it, that was an interesting hour of my life as I was playing STHD with these guys that I’ve only read about and here I am, talking and conversing with them about the development of STHD.

What felt like a distant world suddenly became even less distant.

E3 rolled around and I managed to get in via Capcom Unity by the luck. I was pretty stoked getting to meet some of the Capcom guys. I think what was most interesting about going though wasn’t so much the ridiculously soft carpet that Sega used or the games Capcom showcased in their private backroom but the fact that I got to see people like Alex Valle, Ed Ma, Justin Wong, and Seth Killian just a few feet if not inches away from where I was. I got to see Alex play some MvC2 at the Capcom booth and Justin Wong rocking out SF4 (on a regular Xbox pad) at some other booth.

Call me creepy or weird for making a note of all of this. I wasn’t shaking with delight or anything but I felt something there. It was probably the realization that these guys were human, just like myself. They will probably kick my ass pretty bad in a game but I was just kinda standing there, realizing that this community that we have out here, something that we would previously just see through the monitor of our screens, is living and breathing and that you, a regular old joe, can have a hand in it.

Then EVO09 came. I wasn’t really paying much attention, I wasn’t playing SF4 at all and my interest in fighting games was dying down a bit. Without striving for competition and other things that I was dealing with at the time, it was pretty hard to keep that motivation going. Anyways, a friend of mine (utj) was at EVO and someone pointed it out to me that he was fighting against Daigo and there was a video stream of it taking place. I think it was more realization that this huge ass mountain I viewed as a young kid wasn’t really as unreachable as I once thought.

I didn’t have much time to visit him or anything (probably the most stupidest reason and probably the biggest thing that is holding me back: World of Warcraft), but after this New Years, he got me to go back into fighting games.

The only thing I feel right now is that motivation to go out there, find competition, meet new people and make new connections with this genre that felt like a niche for quite awhile. If I get to the point where I can be really competitive and manage to get up there, then I think that’s where I want to try to be at.

The point of my long ass story is that I think I’m not the minority in this in saying that there are people out there that wish to be better, be able to blend in with the community and just being in that circle with all the great ones. In that regard, it makes us better players and not only that, be better people in the long run.

SO… after all that wordy BS I posted.

If I was a top player in the FGC, what would I do?

  • To tie it in more with what I posted, there are people out that want to play. Be it to get better or be it for the sake of playing. There are people like me who are intimidated, slightly afraid or not motivated to really go out there just because everything just feels like it’s out of our reach, especially when a game has been out for awhile and it just feels like it’s too late to catch up. To get straight to the point, if I was a top player, I’d probably would make a huge effort to keep an eye on upcoming players in any sort of community local, online and so on. Be very inviting, host events and so on. Get connections going. That top player shouldn’t need to be holding people by the hands or anything to that regard but just having communication and connections going is just going to help people improve that wish to seek it. If potentials find it easier to be connected with top players, they will try that much harder after that first step is over. Also include lemonade in these gatherings. Everyone loves lemonade.

  • I think one thing I would do is find some videos of my own matches online and redub the sound with my own commentary about what I was thinking, what was going through my head. If my opponent was someone that I could get to help out with it, I’d do a duo commentary of it.

  • Being a pretty active member of the community, linking other communities together, is a big plus. Encouraging other people to attempt to bring forth their own communities and even helping them out if physical possible is a great way to keep stuff growing too.

  • Keep doing what you’re doing for how ever long you can. Contribute to pass on knowledge from one generation to another. Write history as you see fit as you are the one with the pen in hand right now. Whatever you end up doing now will be reflected on for eternity.

Okay, that was probably a bit too deep for me right now. >.>; I need to get some damn sleep.

39

I’d like to see more podcasts with interviews with top players about strategies,mindsets and all that stuff.I really liked the initial podcasts with Gootecks about the technical side of 3rd strike with guests like ED MA,Ken I,Amir and Pyrolee. Other podcasts I like include the Alphaism radio shows(they need to talk more about strategy and game specific stuff though,more of the 2D basics series)also the Denjin podcast.

Basically we need more of these but without them just eventually leading to non game strategy stuff. Like in the gootecks podcast most of the later episodes were just tournament promos whereas his first ‘denjin video podcasts’ got really in depth with 3rd strike.

40

Play other fighting games if there is a tournament for them at an event, even ones you are not that good at.

This shows a mutual respect and interest in other fighting game communities. If Guilty Gear players saw top SF players taking their game seriously and willing to enter and lose it would serve as a very good means of bringing the two communities together.

It also sets an example to be more open minded and try new games. IF Alex Valle might try playing Virtua Fighter, so might 100 other players who look up to him.

OR

If Alex Valle tries Virtua Fighter, the top VF player might say to himself that he needs to take up SF.