I’m certainly not up with the greatest players in the Northwest and I don’t get much time to play. I’ve got a busy life and usually that means I can’t practice and when I do get a chance to practice it comes 15 minutes at a time. That doesn’t mean that I don’t try to improve. Last time I played Mickey D (which was a long time ago) I got WASTED mentally. I didn’t give up. I talked to him after the match and I talked to other people and I learned and told myself that wasn’t going to happen again. So I only get to play an hour every couple days and I can’t mingle with the Seattle crowd being down here in Olympia, but I’m still rollin’ with it and improving my game as much as I can. When I play in the Tournament Wars casuals I play to win and I slow myself down and try to figure out what I’m doing wrong because I do lose every single time, but every single time I last that little bit longer or I win one more round than the last time.
The mentality that we’re free and terrible is a poison on our community. We have great players that have the potential, it’s just that the mindset needs to change during practice. You can’t only take tournaments seriously otherwise your only real practice is once every few weeks when you play at TW or go to some random tournament in the area. You might as well not play outside of tournaments if you’re not going to take anything but them in a serious light. Not only that, if you go to a session and you’re NOT taking the matches seriously, you’re just bringing down the rest of the people at the session. They need to learn from you just as you need to learn from them and the only way that will happen is if everyone has the mindset for learning.
I think an important mentality for EVERYONE who wants to improve is something that’s been my motto of sorts for years. It’s not even hard haha
Win or lose, I will learn something every match I play.
EVERY. MATCH.
Online, in tournament, casuals, money matches, even matches I WATCH.
The one thing you learn every match isn’t often going to be some huge revelation that will make you the best player of all time. Just make sure you’re paying attention - picking up on habits, strengths and weaknesses. Look at yourself AND your opponent - not one or the other.
Anyway Seattle has got this if everyone really works together it’ll be obvious to the rest of the world that this community has improved.
Come back to reality. Stop boosting your egos. Seattle sucks. FREEATTLE FOR LIFE NIGGA. (we’ve already known this for years in tekken)
lets stop talking about potential. FREEATTLE players love to spend time talking about how good we could be, instead of actually getting better.
lets stop talking about all the bullshit that blinds us from the true reality of sea gaming scene. we all suck. even are imported talent cole and tanaka are hindered from developing because freattle is soo free.
if you dont have time to play practice dedicate. then dont post. Your excuses dont help anyone.
cali has like 20 year head start on their hungryness, competiveness, and tourney nerves/presence. Seattle is not going to catch up with 20 years of history in 1 year.
We have a LOT of work to do.
we only have 1 advantage. Most of us went to college. we need to figure out how to use seattle brain power to our advantage.
I know what I have to do to get better. Zoning. Punishing. Positioning (my character, lol). Footsies. But you know what really prevents me from growing. Listing to muh’fuckaz saying ‘DA KI 2 HI LVL PLAY IZ COMBOZ SON!!’, and so I spend too much time working on combos that are hella flashy and sexed out, but that I’ll never land because my punish opportunities are non-existent.
I love this thread and this forum, because I know what I need to do to get better, and I’m working on it.
I really think it’s as simple as playing with a purpose. That’s really it. Sure a lot of people play stupid, but it’s not that dystopic here. I feel like people look at Seattle with some sort of post apocalyptic view. As if the very gates of hell are located in this area. “There’s no hope here!” Get outta here with that shit. Refinement has always been the name of the game, if something doesn’t work, try something else.
Consider these myths debunked…
-Having to play an inordinate amount of time everyday.
-That in order to be good, you have to do this.
-That we suck because we’re Seattle.
We suck because our playing habits suck. Contrary to popular belief, we’re just as capable as every other scene. Lack of “talent” or “potential” is all in your mind. Like I’ve said in the past, the difference is the mindset. To everybody being overly negative or “real” I pose this question, do you even play with the people who are capable of pushing you to new heights? Actually lemme answer that for you, NO, you aren’t. I’ll throw myself in there as well, cause I’m not playing who could really push me either. But how often do people who I could help, ask me for it? Or people that KNOW they could benefit from playing me, play me? The last people to do it were Mickey and the very person who created this thread. Hell at least I can say I’m trying to play with the people who could really help me improve. But to say we’re hindering Cole and Tanaka, that’s hilarious to me. I’m pretty sure when they lose, it’s their fault. We’re all on the same team until the second the tourney match starts, from then on it’s all you and your opponent. I mean I love you KKF, but you remind me of those two fans from the movie Major League. The guys that always hate on Charlie Sheen and the rest of the Cleveland Indians when they’re doing hella bad, but the second they do well it’s “OH WE’VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU GUYS! YOU’RE THE BEST!”
Wake up.
Posting about it, negatively or positively is hella easy. Action is always another monster in and of itself. I improve by playing people 1v1 for a concentrated amount of time. That’s how I get better. The objective is learning something, every single time I play. There’s my purpose right there. If no one’s learning anything, then how about we play Streets of Rage 2 over xbl? How about we play Uno? Lol. At least we’d have fun then. Making our playing time bear fruit is paramount. This is what I’m saying, until you’ve actually done something to try to be a solution to the so called “problem” then please refrain from dissing the scene as a whole. Pretty pretty please?
I hope to learn from everyone I play and I am always up for advice about my game play and what to work on and I usually ask for it. I know that if I had the accessibility of being on the westside my hungry ass would be driving all over to play people and shit.
and Mandel if were just gonna play anything over XBL its gonna be TNMT-Turtles in TimeHDR(this shits dope just like the old game but new graphics) or UMK3
Ok, well I feel dumb for asking, but just out of curiousity, how do you guys make the most out of your practice time? I kinda wondered about this because one time Bokkin mentioned his training sessions were intense. Honestly I had no idea how that worked exactly? Ever since then I was a little curious about how the top tier players in our area use their practice time.
The way I try and do things is that when I’m playing matches I try to pick one thing to really work on. So for each session it’ll be something like, I’m going to really try to focus on Anti airs, or I’m going to focus on footsies, or I’m really going to do my best to try and pick out a pattern that my opponent does.
BUT when it comes to the training room, I basically just beat up the dummy. I practice a combo or two, maybe try to set the dummy to do something specific and see what I can do against it. I usually feel like I haven’t really done anything except get warmed up. I play Honda and T.Hawk mostly so there isn’t anything TOO fancy to work on that I know of, but I still fell like training mode is kinda useless except for combo practice (though I think I’m using it better than I used to).
I’m having a hard time explaining it, and I know there is no magic training thing that will instantly make me better, but how do I maximize my time spent in the training room? Practice in general? I just wonder if there is something different to do that I would learn more from. With everyone talking about maximizing their practice time I just remembered having that question and thought I’d ask even if it might be stupid. Maybe it will open up a new way for me to view things and I’ll see some improvement from it.
Yeah I used to be in the training room for about 2 hours a day. Then my execution got to about 90% with BnB’s and now I just check opselects and things that are in the lab, so I’m there alot less. With Honda…there is sooo much execution. Get jHK->cMK->HHS->HHS->super down pat…I mean with Hawk it’s alot of footsies/mind games so those with come with exp. All I can say is play good people and take your licks. I took mine and have gotten to a decent level, that and now I know where I want to go. I don’t think I’ve met you(I’m terrible with face to name shit) there are a ton of good players in Bellevue. Head out to events, my place will be open this weekend. People say it’s not about how much you play…but to get better you still HAVE to play.
I read this thread and it’s new posts and found that I was trying to refrain from posting until I read KKF’s post. I only have about 8 minutes to make a well drawn out thoughtful post so don’t act to harsh if I say something a bit out spoken (please?) or have unorganized thoughts in this one…well here goes my 8 minutes (now 7)
I find it very ironic that the one person who is constantly trying to give back handed remarks is the one person in our scene who gives intellectual spikes of “If there’s a problem, stop bitching about it and fix it with your community.” That mentality was INCREDIBLY venomous Frank and I don’t appreciate it. I know you…the REAL you and I know that though you have those feelings towards the scene, I also know that deep down that you have a completely opposite school of thought regarding how to FIX issues in the scene as well.
From me to you on some “real talk”…come on dude, that shit didn’t help anyone in here and it makes you look bad for trying to say that kinda stuff. It’s completely negative with no sort of positive redemption and it doesn’t help us in any way. I know your not like that, so why would you go out and act like that? I know you sometimes like to be “the enforcer” but if you’re going to enforce at least stick to one side of things and don’t flip flop. I don’t want to see “if there are problems then lets fix them” one day, then the next day see “we suck because you all fucking SUCK.” It’s just dumb and you’re smarter than that.
…2 minutes left. I want to close with the idea that no one is implying that we need to go out right now and have stellar performances at Evo. All that is being said is that the community we’re in makes it VERY difficult to do so because of our practicing habits. Once we change HOW we practice, we can become a whole lot better.
I am sure 3 pages on the subject is more than enough information to go off of, right? The next step is to start putting it into motion aka people need to lead by example and go that extra mile to see this idea come to reality.
If you’re really dedicated to SF your ass will not be in Seattle, you will be in Cali or Japan, or wherever the main competition is at.
Too many circle jerks & people not keeping it real. Lets all be honest here SFIV is scrub friendly game, it brought in a lot of new blood & some old schoolers dumb enough to try to will themselves to play this shitty game cuz the endless competition. I think a lot of the problem is that the talent is way diluted. You got only a handful of great experience players & they are doing their damn-est to level scrubs/intermediates to their level but they themselves aren’t leveling up with the main competition, they pretty much are being stalled. So yes they are doing a good service to our scene by leveling our players but they pretty much are stuck until we catch up to them, meanwhile peeps from Cali & japan continue to get more fierce as they dont need to level up cuz all the dedicated players are already playing there, willing to travel, or even migrated there…Making our great players in a disadvantage when they enter the big tournaments.
Those really dedicated players pretty much breathe, eat, & shit street fighter…Unlike most of us, we use street fighter as an outlet of some sort.
^we get it, you hate SF4. I hate SSFT2 HDR but I’m not making rants about it. If you don’t like it…either don’t play it. Or play it like Elias did in SF4, because of the people.
People using the excuse of I’m not competative because I don’t play alot are weak. I went to SNCR and played some America’s best and saw where I was at. I know I’m not to far off and guess what, when it comes to fighting games I’m SEATTLE MADE. Those who will never rise will continue to make excuses. Deezo is right when he’s say that it’s not talent but mentality that is decisive in this game. But I’m thinking that mentality IS talent…sometimes you can’t fix stupid. Cali people don’t breath eat and shit SF4. They do other shit. When it cfomes to me. Yeah, I for a while was into nothing but SF4 during the last winter. Spring rolls around and I’m back to my 2 other main hobbies. We as a scene need to get better…but that can be said about EVEREY FUCKIN SCENE. Who deosn’t want to get better?
To catch up to the likes of Cali/EC is gong to be extremely tough but to do nothing but bitch and whine about how we’re never going to get there…GTFO with that shit. You have already given up so why don’t you just retire so people don’t have to hear you bitch. I’ve heard of the Seattle Marvel days. People just popping by people’s houses and playing for hours. HEY Seattle!..My place is open this weekend…Come get your asses kicked in some SSF4. (Some of Portland may be here as well)
Quick post…only 5 minutes this time around so here it goes. Two things:
The saying of “people need to lead by example” isn’t necessarily the case. You can’t lead if you’re not making an example…which is very easily done when you’re trying to herd blind sheep. The people that DO have eyes will see what’s going on and things will fall in place for them. The moral of the story is simple, don’t point fingers and say “god when are the top players going to take action to better the community?” Because I’ll tell you what’s on those players minds right now…
We alone in these streets cousin
every man for their self in this land we be gunnin’
Secondarily, I wasn’t around to truly envelop Marvel Seattle, but I can tell you that “having a place to play” wasn’t what made Seattle godly. I assume that it was their practicing habits and their competitive mentalities that brought them so much success. Having a place to play is just the beginning.
^we need a beginning…the dojo is a good start…but that place is hella far for alot of people. I can open my place for the next few weeks due to the fact that my roomate is gone…we need more…every journey starts with a single step…having places to play is that step…I don’t care how much you play online…its never going to replace in person play. Seattle needs more of that.