Top players are like top lecturers from a university. They want to help but they are very busy and can only give a few words of advice and you have to spend the whole term doing the research and putting it all together by yourself. You can’t expect a top player to teach like a driving instructor.
Perhaps posting the training regimes used up here would actualy be a good idea, there is no reason that any group of players at a lower level can’t emulate them and still learn something if the presence of a top player only matters to the select few who would be in the “expert section” anyway.
Don’t think ban matchs would work in places where tournaments aren’t so frequent though, simply because you may very well run out of players before anyone has a chance to redeem themselvse. :razzy:
Perhaps some guidelines on how to level up without a local scene would also be helpfull, I mean didn’t Magnetro (maybe spelt wrong) or someone just come out of nowhere and do pretty well at a big tourney?
Would be nice to know how people like that prepared.
Oh my god. Can I just say that I hate all of you So. Cal people that have the opportunity to attend something as great as this weekly training session? :annoy:
Good luck with it, though. Sounds like it needs to become a regular practice in other growing FG communities around the country (and world, perhaps).
I want to start by saying props to Valle and all the people putting in the work to strengthen then the community.
First, a little personal story. In about 2002, I started playing poker for a living. I did this for about 5 years. When I started, the scene was there but it was average. You had all of the well known poker “gods” winning and placing highly in tournaments. In 2003, the scene blew up. What prompted this? Chris Moneymaker, an average joe, took home a few mil winning the World Series of Poker. After that, the poker world saw a monumental influx of new players. Everyone and their sister wanted a piece of the pie. The huge influx of interest and players was because it was shown that anyone could go out and win a tournament. You didn’t have to be some mystic poker god to get out there and do your thing and bring home the cash. People looked at Moneymaker and said “Hey, I could do that too.” and so tens of thousands of new poker players from all walks of life joined the races.
I think fighting games still have that wall up. New players and players at the low skill levels of the FGC look at guys like Valle, Justin, Daigo, and they say “Damn, the Street Fighter Gods descended from the heavens and blessed them with talent. I wish I was gifted enough to get to that level. Oh, well why bother.” I think the key to bringing in new blood is to make the champions, the top players, more humanized to everyone. If people heard stories about the early days, when the champs were just scrubs, and hear about the struggles they had to overcome to become those top players, then they not only know that these champs are human, but they get a glimpse into what they would have to tackle and how hard they’re going to have to work to get there. And sure, there’s much much less luck in Fighting games than there is in poker so you’re not going to have some no name winning at EVO, but through stories of the scrub days, insight into the kind of training you do to stay on top, maybe even a kind of coming up documentary, you’re showing the people that if they want it bad enough and are willing to work for it, they can get there too.
I guess the real question is, how do you appeal to the casual player, the xbox live junkie, the guy who types in street fighter in youtube because one of his friends mentions it. That’s the hard part. Training sessions, strategy articles, and shit like that are great for the current community and my hat goes off to the people out there working hard on this stuff, but while it improves the current community, it’s not necessarily roping the new blood in by the ton. I think things like “I Got Next” have the potential to be that. Alex, I think if some one produced a movie about you and you could document everything from your early days until now, it would be that. Those are just examples really. If people really want the scene to get huge, they have to do what SRK seems to hate. They have to reach out to those casual players, the xbox live junkies, those guys who type in street fighter in youtube because one of their friends mentions it. New blood flew in on its own with the SF4 hype (including myself) and there’ll be more with the Super SF4 hype but that wont last. Now’s the time to grab every body possible and get them interested in competitive SF. Ride that wave.
OK, so it’s early and I kinda of went off on a rant. So what can top players do to drag all that new blood in? My suggestion is to just be the celebrity, be the hype, be the public face of competitive fighting games, the ambassador to the weekend couch warriors and at the same time open yourself up, show how hard you work, and how you got where you are.
If I was a top player I’d go find the guys who may not be the best at the games but they love them enough to organize sessions, tournaments, whatever, and give them publicity. I’d go to people’s houses and drag them out, say “Get off the internet and come play for real some time” and help them get better and to get them out. I know a few people who’ve done this and they pretty much back their best players and discover new ones (I’m lookin at you Chacha) and it’s helped their scene grow immensely.
no shit.
i am a jealous fuck.
double penetration.
I really like the UFC-ish model Gootecks is developing with LA Riots/ Hooters. High-quality play, high-quality commentary, and more importantly it doesn’t last 8 hours. It would be cool to have like a small 8 man tourney with a couple “superfights” at the end. Bonuses like fight of the night are really awesome and add to the drama. Close matches from the 8 man tourney can become exhibitions in the next event, while players for the tourney can come from Wed Night Fights. I had written a much longer post with more details, but SRK is being an asshole to me right now.
I think a big problem with the new players is that they don’t see losing as pretty much the ONLY way to get better.
Practice, practice, practice… make some mistakes keep playing and don’t just specialize in one game.
All us players back in the day didn’t just play one game but ALL games from tekken, street fighter, marvel, kof.
Indeedy. This has been G.O.T’s job for a minute…but he’s failed at it multiple times. Maybe this time the jack-off will get it right. South Texas needs a lil breath of fresh air from other genres and give the Black Eye, 3 piece generation another chance. Exception of Modern Warfare 2…game is crack.
Ban matches! Fuck ya, those were sweet.
I loved the whole concept of ban matches, but I think it would be more interesting if they were like…you’re banned for the week or two weeks or something then you can come back the next week to prove yourself that you went home, practiced and got better.
I hope damdai, chris doyle, nohoho, dso r any top hdr players who live in or near ny are reading this thread and get inspired to teach people (especially players like myself who are competent but not nearly on that “I’m making top8 @ evo” level".)
Alex do you have any tips on how to get something started similar to what you’re doing on the EC? (specifically NY)
nice now i can come back and play!
The man himself tries a different approach in his teachings. What more could be asked.
I gotta say though, ban matches were significan’t to me( I have been in them twice) and as Jchensor said, what you loearn in those matches, no matter how terribly you do, is immeasurable.
So eventhough there have been complaints I hope at least Valle will at least keep some soft ban matches(bans lasting a week or two) in the sessions. But maybe that’s just it. Maybe he wants you to get in your head every match is a ban match.
Touche, Valle.
I thought ban matches were a good idea. I was banned, but how I dealt with that embarrassment really helped me determine what my place is.
Going back to SGHL’s to get scraped would be a waste of freaking life (Unless Blazgreen was involved of course). I won’t go until I know I belong there or to donate my monitor, SF4 disc, and TE stick because I’ve realized I’m wasting my time with this game.
They should continue. There are soooo many sessions now that people can go to.
Competition isn’t about caring about each other’s feelings.
Shit look at any successful person, IRL they are most likely kind of an ass. You don’t get anywhere in this world being nice and thinking about everyone else. You can make it seem like you are nice or thinking about people, but in your head is the feeling that you are better than that other person.
If I was a top player I’d probably urinate all over wonder_chef, and then make him clean it up.
I totally agree with this. I know some invite-only tournaments and exhibitions are popular, but I actually don’t like them at all. They reinforce this idea that there are pros in Street Fighter, that there’s some real boundary between the best players and everyone else. That idea is important to generate if we’re interested in marketing certain players and events for sale, but I’m not interested in that. The only reason I play Street Fighter, the only one at all, is that I need this kind of intellectual competition to be happy. That some people know who I am because I’ve done well in it is not a motivator for me, and when people go out of their way to be nice to me or treat me like a celebrity, I’m always visibly embarrassed and also secretly disappointed in them.
Anyway, what’s the best thing top players can do to contribute to the community? Be a part of the community.
Post on SRK, and not mindlessly. Break down match videos, especially when they’re of you, like I’ve done in the Gief forum. Break down matchups in public, whether in posts or video commentaries. If you find good information, post about it. If you can, make a video about it.
In particular, something I’ve thought about doing for a while is a slightly different English-language version of what Ken Bogard does on his YouTube channel. He takes videos from other sources and imposes his own commentary on them, often with pretty interesting results (…in French). He gives a good insight into why the players he’s watching made the decisions they did. I’d like to do the same kind of thing but with stops in the video so I can give myself time to explain what just happened. I guess I’ll start doing this by myself if no one else wants in, but I’d really like to have 2-3 other people do it with me.
Honestly, I agree with you UltraDavid. I wouldn’t mind having someone watch my vids, then after they’re done laughing, actually throw commentary onto them
I get a lot of mail about the following via social networks (SRK,Twitter,Facebook):
- SF4 challenges on XBL/PSN
- To watch player videos and write/commentate suggestions
- Post a strategy guide in character forum
Reply to #1
I’ll be completely honest.
I will only challenge players online with at least 4-5 bars of lag on XBL only.
Next, if I happen to challenge you, it’s because someone suggested I should or you found me in Champ Mode.
I don’t have much time to play online to critique everybody’s game.
I do appreciate all the invites but it’s just too overwhelming <3
Reply to #2,3
Two great posts come to mind:
James Chen wrote:
"What makes what Valle is doing so unique is that he’s actually trying something no one has ever done: trying to teach AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE in what limited time he has. Who else has been taking on this sort of endeavor? I dare anyone to try and name ONE PERSON who is trying anything as ambitious as Valle is right now.
So the purpose of this thread is so Valle can figure out how to teach as many people how to play Street Fighter as possible in AS LITTLE TIME as possible. Frankly, he doesn’t have time to teach YOU how to play Street Fighter… and I don’t mean specifically you, I mean everyone who is reading this thread. He can’t do it. He just can’t.
So the trick is to figure out how to teach a lot of people at once. So Valle and I collaborated for a good amount of time on how to do that at shgl’s – obviously, Valle can’t attend to every individual there. It’s just impossible to do it and so he focuses on the ones with the most potential and hopes the lessons learned by them work their way down via everyone else that is there as people play each other."
Pherai wrote:
“As a novice SF player, you have a wealth of information to learn and experience to gain. Valle can provide all of what you want, but the lessons he can provide exclusively, the lessons you can’t learn from players below him, are beyond most of our comprehension right now, especially someone getting banned from SHGL’s. The stuff that is most important for you to learn, you can learn from players that are weaker than Valle, so its not worth his time to teach you something you can learn from someone less in demand.”
Tune in to Weds Night Fights Live Stream 2010 to teach everybody the mysteries of FOOTSIES!