Roundtable Discussion: Ways in which to expand the SFxT community

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
1

I want this to be a roundtable discussion on what we can do as a community to keep this game alive. The rest of this post contains my own ideas, primarily the creation of more fan content on this game. After all, pro players just need to practice it and stomp the SF4-expansion pack players to make a difference, but what about those of us unable to do so and wanting to support it in other ways?

Well we live in the information age and yet all the information one can find about this game is either blatantly negative or highly dated. We complain that we are among the few that play this game correctly and realize how different it is than AE, but if one takes the time to look at the instructional content for this game outside the character forums it is all months old. If someone picks up the game and earnestly wants to learn it, most likely they will access the launch (some pre-launch) character guides and combo videos that understandably show little working knowledge of what the game offers now. Even the SRK guide and the Eventhubs stuff have not been updated since around release date.

The only way to combat misinformation is to replace it with the correct stuff. I’m thinking things like youtube walkthroughs for various characters (not just combo videos) done by people who actually know how the game has evolved. Ideally, there’d be game specific walkthroughs that outline the uniqueness of the game and how to go about exploiting it for one’s advantage such as time, life, and meter management, building the best team, The Oki game (forward roll discussed), effective gem lineups, and all that. Heck, even just uploading higher level play to youtube or hosting a high level stream on twitch would be great because I do not even see those (JiBbo excluded of course!).

This is very ambitious for me because I have no means of making youtube videos, hosting a stream, or even an ounce of pull within my local community. That is why this is partly a call for those who have such resources to use them in defense of your game. Even so, I would be happy to write lots and lots for this game, be it walkthroughs, tournament coverage, character analysis, anything, if people feel that it can help. For starters, I was thinking of making short, updated guides (preferably for newcomers) on SFxT elements as well as for the characters I know and sticking them on the character forums. The character threads are great sources of information, but it is incredibly taxing to sort through the pre-release hype, the ineffectual week 1 tech, etc. My goal would be to reduce the essential knowledge for each character into bitesize chunks.

So does anyone feel like joining me in this quest to save SFxT and turn some heads? I promise my writing will be more condensed. I feel a little guilty because JiBbo is doing so much and while we all benefit from it, I feel we can do more to get not only his words but our own out there as well. If anyone has any ideas please share them, I want to be put to work.

I want to start with a “Boost Gems and you” guide that details why boost gems are badass and why both beginners and knowledgable players should pay them more attention.

Edit: I’d love to help the people over at Rawtag, if they would have me.

2

On this note, I’m working (slowly) on youtube guides for Juri, Asuka and for the both of them as a team. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

3

That’d be great. Juri’s a popular character not often used well and Asuka, well I do not think there’s even a pre-launch Asuka guide floating around.

4

Does Rip not provide Level Up your Game vids for this anymore? Last one I remember them doing was Heihachi/Kuma and that was pre-release.

5

Nope. All the LYG videos were done pre-release as a means to hype the game. Those were really fun I really wish they would make more, but I have not seen any. To be fair TTT2 is gonna be huge for the Tekken community, so it makes sense they are spending all their time exploring that.

6

I wish I was into the frame data and high technical stuff,cuz I would love to do a Hoawrang guide lol.

7

my plans fell through in getting the japanese guide to the game but someone else should pick up from my slack and get that book that had like all the hitbox data for every move, better if you can eyeball translate some of the scans to make things alittle more clear~

I personally am putting together a project or two on the game and maybe get some other things going. I do however want the skinny on the new characters(frame data and move properties) anywho~ lets enjoy this game to the fullest.

8

It doesn’t have hit box data. I have the Arcadia one. Frame data is here and it’s different than the Bradyguide’s. There’s also individual chain frame data too.

edit: It’s hard to do online replays. Seeing assist gems sort of trivialize the match.

Maybe podcasts and more active online participation to dissect the game.

9

forealz? uhhg then that dude was going to make me waste 48 bucks…lame. thanks for the heads up.

10

I thought of something I might be able to do. I am considering doing a series of specialized character guides called “Why use X character?” What I’d do is take a character, starting with my most familiar and lesser used characters and eventually encompassing all of them, and give an extended discussion on their pros and cons and why they should be considered for a person’s team and/or playstyle. So I would cover the basics with the character but also attempt to go as in-depth with things such as how their best moves are used and the options they lead to. Ideally, it’d serve to make more characters appealing as well as serve as a checklist for what roles a character can fulfill when completing that 2 piece jigsaw puzzle that is team building.

11

I think that’s a good start. Looking forward to it.

12

Yeah, I’ll see how it goes, and post them onto the character forums and maybe onto Rawtag if I can talk to the creator again. Mostly I want to see if the format works well, because then other characters can do them for their characters. I’m happy to do a whole lot, it’s just that naturally there are some characters I do not know so well. I’ll start with King since I’m learning him the most and it will be interesting trying to factor in all of his various things to finally determine what the hell kind of a character he is supposed to be.

13

Didn’t Finger Cramp do something like that in the beginning? I like that it will be more in-depth

14

It’s true, they did. And I guess it is kind of silly to think that I am more knowledgable at fighters than fingercramp. Well I’d do my best to outline the information not utilized by them, since it’s been a few months and people have found out a lot more. Also they do not have every character up on youtube at all, have they done every character somewhere or other?

Well by going into moves I would not exactly be listing every move and its usefulness, like those did. Moreso I’d take their best moves and explain how they fit in with that character’s general playstyle. For instance, when I label King as an effective mixup character, I want to talk about his various mixups, such as his elbow string and Jaguar Step, and perhaps go more in-depth about them in this respect. They are not meant to be a comprehensive breakdown, but more the appealing points of characters (and what to look out for) so that if someone is considering a character for their team they know aspects that particular tool has.

15

I am going to repeatedly send pictures of my genitals to all my friends who gave up on SFxT week 2 and went back to SFIV.

16

Hmm… I’ll see what I can do to help as well. At most right now, I’m going to try to make it to locals and participate 'round these parts, as well as offer any help I can to discussions.

This would be fantastic start, actually.

17

As far as media is concerned, I’m running a series of SFxT tournaments in norcal (Antioch/Pittsburg area) starting this Friday. 925 FinalBout KOF/AE/UVC3/etc Sessions 925 The tournaments are going to be streamed at twitch.tv/final_bout. It’s an entire ranbat season for 6 weeks. There are a few good SFxT players in norcal and I’m hoping they’ll start coming out consistently.

Not to be a pessimist, but I think video content (mainly streams) is so important as far as changing people’s opinions about the game that it pretty much eclipses almost all other ways of putting out information. I mean just look at how the game “died” in the first place. Stream monsters watching low level play of the game then doing what they do best, and streamers reacting to it by taking the game out of their lineup. There can be all the guides in the world on the game, but people need to see what the game looks like at a high level before they consider learning how to do what they just saw.

18

I have been lurking on the forums for a while now and the amount of GOOD concise content in the character forums is poor. I have been working hard on my execution and around how the numbers work in combos and looking at many of the character specific forums the information is highly out of date, “useless” or buried so deep in a thread that anyone new to SFxT is likely never going to see it.

That said I came to a similar conclusion in regards to needing new content to keep this game kicking ass and chewing bubble gum, so have been busy working on a basic guide to SFxT game mechanics and a character specific execution/idea guide for poison which I hope to finish on the weekend.

19

Keep playing it at events/tournaments.

20

This. Keep repping the game at tournaments - specially majors - like people have been doing so far and the game won’t die no matter how much stream monsters want it. Once Capcom is done with the patching, it’ll be a lot easier to convince people to give it another try if there are people already playing it.