I’m the manager of Down Forward Punch Tournaments.
We hold Sf4:Ae Tournaments in Montreal every month since a year and a half, our player base is about 40 participants per tournament.
As we started getting professional recording hardware and start getting some sponsor, we were aproached by one of our sponsor that just came with something like this:
( We gladly sponsor you guys and i know it sounds stupid, i don’t know the game much, but why would your tournament’s finals be in a stage which is essentially a large block with squares everywhere, i see your other matches being held in very nice looking and interesting background stages. isn’t choosing that weird box-shaped stage very anti-climactic ? especially for the finals )
Since then, we had a meeting and we are seriously thinking about banning the Training stage, and the Volcano stage from the tournaments.
it’s funny, but as alot of sponsors pointed out, the finals look really boring and plain compared to the other matches.
What is your opinion on it ? I know some people’s take on it is it’s neutral for both, and you get footsies hints and help on the floor.
But i mean lets be honest, any stage affects both players in similar microscopic way, its not like cool stages give any players an edge, and it’s a real bummer to casual watches when they they ready for the grand finals and their faces drop when they see the stage selection.
It’s usually just taken to minimize PS3 lag. The rest is just comfort issues. If you don’t have a lag problem, ask if the players could get used to, say, Overpass or Old Temple as the default neutral stage.
Like previously mentioned, the training stage is used because it doesn’t cause the slowdown effect on PS3 versions of the game. But beyond it, it’s also the least distracting stage in the whole game, which is why it’s so heavily used. There’s no light/dark contrast in the back, so it helps both characters stand out, and the lack of animations helps you focus in on your opponent, and not whatever the heck is going on in the background.
But if it’s a severe problem, I suggest you use stages that use minimal animations in the background, but aren’t so dark your characters fade into it. Overpass is a good stage, Old Temple’s a classic, the Boat stage is nice etc… You’ll have to go through them yourself to see which ones your sponsors and players would both like.
If the tournament is offline, I can’t really believe that it would make any difference which stage you picked. Course, I play on PC, but even offline, are there stages that lag the PS3 version?
The ‘Training Stage’ in SFIV is a undeniable conundrum; because:
a) It is genuinely useful tool for high-level play, being practical for spacing
b) It’s a very dull stage to watch: its constant presence in events and broadcasts damages the brand and/or media end product.
In the arcade SSFIVAE, an option is present to disable the ‘Stage Select’ (after character select screen). The game immediately begins with ‘Random’ stage select as default. This was probably included for arcade operators who to maximise game time; I enjoyed it because it avoids them usual numbnuts who sit there at the stage select screen for 30 secs while tapping away on their goddamn phones.
Anyways - back on point: I reckon that perhaps FORCING random stage select might be the best way around this issue.
i am not going to comment on PS3 because I have played just once on that platform and did not notice a single slowdown… regardless; the claim that people make that “x” level ONLINE on xbox live causes lag is actually just retarded. the stage information does not even get sent over the network other than when it is initially chosen so the game knows which stage to display on both consoles.
Can’t imagine any developer thinking of dealing with stage information for an online game.
For Fighting games, Space games, Race games, whatever. Environment are locally rendered.
C’on guyz seriously, did you ever saw an opponent wearing a custom or DLC costume you didn’t had ?
So you think they stream the stage infos but for some reasons they can’t do the same with chars models ?
No they just don’t, data exchanged are just inputs. Just like replays are stored.
