You make a good point, but the thing is, there are some tournaments that are head-to-head and others that are side-by-side. Just like you said.
Speaking strictly from a financial standpoint, it is more difficult for tournaments like EVO (that don’t run on arcades and require the use of actual TVs or monitors) to accommodate head-to-head players because it requires two monitors when you could be using one. Tournaments like SBO are largely run on existing arcade setups (I believe, correct me if I’m wrong), which are already set up head-to-head.
Besides, each tournament has its own setup and its own rules - for example, EVO is best 2 out of 3 while SBO is one match. Some tournaments play differently from others, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect every tournament to be able to accommodate players who want to play head-to-head. Even if it’s just EVO we’re talking about, there’s still the financial barrier there.
Also, and I’ve said this before, if you REALLY want to listen to button tapping, it can be done head-to-head. I don’t think you could do it well but it can be done.
Listening and baiting for listeners has been around forever, especially in other games.
In Tekken, people playing against a King or Armor king will listen for the distinctive f,hcf of a Giant Swing. So King stick players will try to bait the 1 break with an empty f,hcf or f,hcf 2+4. With Giant Swing having a smaller break window than most other throws, you almost have to break it pre-emptively. Depending on the character, King could have a faster jab, or could take advantage with that fake Giant Swing 2-throw.
Same goes for baiting with fake motions in SF. Whether they respond to the sound of a double qcf or the dips, you can still bait. It’s just different cues.
I agree that Aion complaining about people listening to buttons is fucking ridiculous. I usually agree with him on most of his posts but this one is just way off. If you lose to someone because they heard your buttons…well then you just suck. bottom line. if you dont use that shit to your advantage, then youre even more dumb (if you know they listen then use mindgames to fake them out and such with stick motions). i used to do this with sanford all the time in cvs2.
What’s even more ridiculous is that in the same sentence Aion says “see this is why foreigners get bust up in SBO…” when it actually has nothing to do with said topic at all and makes him sound suuuper salty at best.
i like head to head but because you cant hear buttons people tend to do wakeup supers more etc
All good points, all well made. Good to see some actual discussion rather than the 1,057th post reaffirming that a) this stuff has been around forever b) examples of said tactics.
It would be pretty arrogant to say that I think Evo should be re-organised to fit the players that come from abroad rather than the US players that make up the overwhelming majority of entrants. That’s not really what I want. I know Evo is a side by side tournament right now, and that comes with certain advantages and disadvantages that we’ve already discussed.
What I do think is that when we’re talking about a tournament that purports to be the ‘world championships’, you have to think big. Six years ago if I’d have posted in a thread saying that Evo should have qualifiers in Australia, South America and Europe, with another tournament in Japan on the way, live streams (in fact two streaming set ups that switch to eliminate down time configuring buttons) and all the other jazz ($20,000 prizes, Cesars palace location etc etc) people would probably have reacted in a similar way.
I like how you say people play ‘chairsies’. See, that’s the kind of mindset we all know these tournaments produce. As soon as I saw the Wong/Gamerbee video I thought straight away that I would have started playing chairsies myself! So it’s good to know that I wouldn’t have been looked at like a trouble maker or anything. I think this really begs the question of what the ideal situation would and should be, if Evo was to have the resources to incorporate other set ups. Where you sit makes a difference, that’s for sure. I’m glad people recognise this.
I’d like to see the option of head to head. If both players like and want to play games of listening and baiting, cool, play side by side. If they want to play head to head, cool. If they can’t agree, one game on each, or something like that, with the winner of the second game choosing the third if they’re tied. Something like that anyway. I’m sure some kind of system could be easily established.
All I’m really saying is that I think it’s worth pointing out that at a world championships NOT having set ups for the MAJORITY OF THE WORLD’s players (100% guaranteed there are more competitive players playing head to head worldwide for SFIV, 3S and all the recent ‘big’ games than side to side) should really be thought about for future tournaments. Everyone in this thread points out that these tactics are a big part of the game on side to side, so the revers is also true for the visiting players that are head to head players. Being able to do certain things knowing that your opponent can’t hear you is a big part of h2h play. Take Hugo as an example. I used to play Hugo casually (my main is Elena) on 3S at Troc. When the players switched to Casino (for a number of reasons) and we were playing side to side, I stopped playing Hugo as I could see the difference that telegraphing 720s and 36s made. I’m Not saying providing h2h cabs is do or die- just like I say, the ideal situation would see something provided.
Last anecdote: When 3S was at it’s peak here, our best player at the time Zak (who was just a touch better than Ryan Heart imho at his best) had a choice to go to Evo or SBO one year. He told me when we were chatting about it that he’d prefer SBO. When I asked why- is it the standard of play, is it because you prefer visiting Japan, or what? He said cos it was on head to head arcade. Everyone, I think knows Evo is more hype when the international players are there in force. Like in 2004 when there were bare heads in every game from Japan and Europe placing high. I honestly think having head to head as an option (just like how back at B5 Japanese set ups were an option as well as US on the cabinets) would see more players wanting to go.
That reminds me how it was so much easier in Tekken 3 to do reversals when you were reacting to the player next to you rather than the on-screen character.
And for those who are now paranoid about being heard by their opponents, they could swap out loud Sanwas for some quieter Seimitsus…
Evo is refered to as the world championships because it is the largest open tournament in the world, the hardest tournament to place in, and has been drawing international players since B4 (at the very least, possibly B3).
All that wasn’t created by the event hosters though, it was created by the players. The players made it big, they made it the largest open tournament in the world and every year the turn out is higher and higher.
Great so now I have another headache to deal with at a tournament? Why not bring back blind characters and ultras too? Blind stage select. We’ll spend more time negotiating the terms of the match than we actually do playing. That’ll be lots of fun… not.
if all of the worlds players don’t show up to evo then whats the point? You want to force headache and inconvience upon thousands of players to please a handful of foreigners? Agreeing to set ups types, character selects, ultra selects, stage selects, whatever else on top of a 2000 man tournament is only going to make the tournament run longer than it already is. Make players wait longer for their matches (pissing them off and increase the chance of them wondering around thus increasing the chance of DQ’s) and for what? Because your scared of your opponent? Afraid that he’ll be able to listen to your buttons? See you wiggle the stick? Why don’t you put a shoe box on top of your stick if you think it’ll make a difference like scrubs used to do back 15 years ago if you think it’ll make a difference.
Personally I don’t care if evo is h2h or s2s. I’ll be out in 2 matches anyway (plus I play on pad so you can’t hear my shit anyway). But the reasons for why this is being brought up, the inveitable annoyance that its sure to cause, catering to the less than 1% of the players that might be there is all BS. This is evo, you know what the setup is before you go in. Don’t go complaining about it after the fact.
This just reminds me of the Daigo parrying video where justin wong was very noticeably trying to fuck up daigo’s timing by mashing excessively/frantically. That imo seems much much much scummier/like he’s angle shooting than listening to inputs, since as we’ve seen you can defend against hearing inputs/play mind games with your opponent hearing them. You can’t do anything about your opponent sitting there mashing while you are trying to do a high precision combo/parry. I mean are people allowed to start messing with the other persons hands during a combo, cuz that shit used to happen in the arcade too by the scrubby bullies or older kids.
It’s a part of competing. To me it’s like saying you shouldn’t be reading your opponent’s body language in a real-life fight or something because it’s dishonorable … uh what.
And if you messed up your timing on something because the other player was randomly tapping their buttons, lol, welcome to the world of competing. That’s the excuse of a baseball player striking out because he hears someone behind home plate going “HEY batter batter!” haha, “scummy”
difference is the batter isn’t physically having his bat touched… if the catcher interferes he automatically gets a base. lol shaking a table is cool so i’m going to start tackling people to fuck up their fadc ultras… like obviously making noise is fine but when people are trying to physically shake a table by mashing that is kind of ridiculous.
First off, what the hell are you talking about? I mean seriously, how rickety is that table to have it move so much because someone’s hitting buttons? He’s mashing hard on the buttons so that Daigo will hear the rhythm and get thrown off. He’s not trying to knock the table out from under Daigo. Regardless, I don’t see why either player shouldn’t be allowed to play with the stick in their lap should they prefer to.
