Serious question. What the fuck is up with online play these days?
Do people get points or a gold star for doing double and triple shoryus in a row, for doing random supers from half screen, from doing hurricane kicks back and forth like a fucking retard because that works in lag? Is picking Honda and switching between mashing hands and doing full screen headbutts or 3 buttslams in row fun? Is it? It sure seems like it must be, because it seems like most of the people I run into these days, even if I know they’re capable of playing better than that, plays like that online.
I’ve never taken online play seriously, but I do try to use it to practice. I try to pretend that it’s offline and use the same tactics I would offline, up until people go into berzerker mode and then sometimes I do too just to try to match it. Because fuck that shit. But win or lose, that’s not fun to me. It’s fucking retarded and an unfulfilling experience.
So seriously, what’s up with online these days? Is everyone just fucking around? Or do people really think they’re outplaying you when that shit works?
Hehe. I’ve been off SF4 for awhile now. Been playing SFxT lately, which despite the hate, I think is a much more fun game than SF4. It does have a few serious BS issues (assist gems and jabs are even jabbier!). But when you aren’t fighting that, it feels a lot more fluid and fun than all those vortex setups in SF4.
Anyway, I actually do still play HDR from time to time. Usually what happens is that I play one of these newer games for awhile and then decide to end my session with a few games of HDR to restore some of my sanity. And it used to work. It used to be that the chances of the games being decent were high. And I still do occasionally find people that play legit. But it seems like increasingly, people are learning to use the lag to their advantage. They’re playing with the lag, not in spite of it.
I don’t think that’s it. The people I’m talking about don’t seem novice at all. They seem like decent, and sometimes even pretty good, players. I dunno…maybe everyone just hates fighting Dhalsim these days? At any rate, they don’t seem to do this for lack of knowledge about the game. They seem to do this specifically because it works well against Sim online. And honestly it’s not just anti Sim techniques. When I watch people play each other there seems to be a lot more jumping, a lot more random/double srks, full screen headbutts/balls/etc. There’s some decent play involved, but it seems to be aided by a lot of online-only tactics.
Also, just to be clear, my reason for posting this wasn’t just one frustrating night of running into this. It’s something I’ve noticed as an increasing trend. Which I think is sad. This game used to be my rock, a place to find solid play in a sea of increasingly mashy games. But it feels like these new-school games are rubbing off on people. Or maybe everyone just plays online-only these days so online tactics start to seem legit.
Who knows though. Maybe the upcoming Capcom HDR tournaments will bring more people back online to practice and legit play with it.
I realize this thread probably sounds really scrubby. But let me give you guys an example. I just played OYAKATASP2009, a Japanese player who joined the room I was in with another person in Cali. He played Ryu and spent most of his time doing LK tatsu followed by LP SRK. He knew how to cancel into super etc, so obviously not a complete idiot. And he finally won the match with 3 back-to-back LP SRKs which beat my mis-timed st.MK punish to them being whiffed. I mean really? Does that fly in Japanese arcades?
There is one UK player named “oneneoeno” and he manages to beat people by doing BRAINLESS stuff like this in a LOOP : Jab uppercut , Jab uppercut , Jab uppercut , Standing fiercepunch , fierce tatsu , fierce uppercut <- all perfectly sequenced.
So what does this mean? Means that this is something you would only see by playing online. You’d never see something like that in a tourney.
It’s online, anything and everything goes. Lag tactics ftw. It’s like a whole other, totally unnecessary and pointless, layer of mind games added to SF2.
You basically today have a generation of players that pretty much only play games online. The arcades are gone and offline tournies only draw a fraction of total players. I don’t think a lot of them even know that what they are doing is “online scrubbiness”, they’re just using what their “experience” is telling them will work more often than not. I see it on HDR, GGPO, SSF4, SxT, UMvC3, etc. etc. Just because they can do some semi-difficult combos doesn’t mean they know anything other than online play.
Also I’m with Jiggly, I haven’t played you in literally years man, we really need to get some games in. I think we’ve only played a couple of times on HDR (though many, many times on GGPO pre-HDR days).
P.S. Don’t think I don’t notice that every time you complain about lag or scrubbiness you always seem to use Honda for your examples!
Hehe ya, it’s like people have mastered a new set of online-only tactics. It’s kinda crazy!
Yeah, in those newer games that’s the case for sure. There seems to be tons of people that are really good at combos and setups while their normal footsie game, strategies, and style mixups are non-existent. I guess it just throws me off in SF2 since that typically hasn’t been the case over the years.
Yeah dude, it’s been ages! We should try to organize an old-timers get together. Maybe some weekend after Evo?
LOL! Please don’t take any offense. Some of my best friends are Honda players
I think my hate for scrubby online Honda is two-fold - 1)For some reason when people get beat and want to counter pick online, scrubby Honda seems like a common go-to pick. 2)Because I’ve played that match so much with Megaman, and others, offline I think I’m far more critical about people getting away with dumb stuff.
Honestly, I guess I should just be happy that more people don’t counter-pick with decent Vega, Cammy, Chun, Bison, and Balrog.
LOL, it’s funny but scrubby players keep trying to counter pick me with Blanka and Zangief. I guess scrubby online Hondas are stopped cold by constant jumping LK and spam Electricity. I don’t get the Gief pick except maybe they figure I won’t be throwing them every 2 seconds if they use Gief.
This is actually going to be my strategy against the Japanese when I play them at EVO for ToL. You see, we simply can’t beat them at high level play. They INVENTED high level strategies. The only way to beat them is to bring them back down to low levels, back down to my level.
So, I’m going to open up the round with 3 consecutive jab shoryukens followed by a fierce shoryu. Before my character even lands, I’m going to physically stand up and walk away from my stick. As the Japanese all stair at each other wondering “性交は何が起きているのですか?”, before they can figure out whats happening, I’m going run back to my stick like a ninja and quickly do a TOD combo.
To further add to the confusion, if I manage to win life lead to the point of being able to chip them to death, I will suddenly lose the round on purpose. At random points throughout the match, I’ll look away from the screen entirely and just stair directly at their eyes as I mumble incoherent chants.
It’s what the Japanese call “genjutsu”. I’m going to win by causing confusion and putting “fucks” into their brain.
I don’t think it’s a blow-out by any means, but I think in HDR Bison has an advantage over Sim. And especially online where a slightly mis-timed anti-air can cost you a TOD.
It seems classic mode on psn is pretty solid, i mean, smooth connection, room implosions are rare, it’s maybe because almost nobody play classic mode on psn except when i create a room and my friends join me. Good, goooooood, i love it, thanks scrubs for not playing in classic mode, that mode is sooo clean!
I tried to host a Classic game on Live earlier for about 20 minutes, but nobody came. Seems a real shame. The amount of Hawk and Gief players on Remix who just wipe you out in seconds is kinda demoralising. Dhalsim was amazing on the original ST, but on this… ://///
