Yes, this is a bit of nerd rage, but OMG is it well deserved, albeit quite late in the game.
As all TvC players know, the online matchmaking for this game is absolutely terrible. The ranking algorithm is okay in its own right, but the coders failed to add in any penalty or reimbursement to quitting players. Not only can a player quit a game and not lose points, but the winner does not gain points and will get a lower win percentage rate as the match will count as a game played, netiher won nor lost. This ends up being a big waste of time for players who play quitters. Essentially a person could theoretically level up in Ranked matches and quit every lost game and be the top player. This ranking system is so poorly designed and the online is so laggy that not very many actual pro players will even go near it. Even standard user population is steadily dropping.
There is no lobby system. You can only play one at a time, which is pretty dumb, so if you wanted to “cast” this on a stream, you couldn’t unless all the players were in the same location on the same system. Having “friends” or “rivals” would be cool if it didn’t make your “start-up” slower with the Wii updating all the information everytime you connected.
Users can create and delete accounts as many times as they want, and yet this game only allows one account at a time so a friend can’t make one without deleting the owner’s.
There is also a huge issue with lag, due to Nintendo WiFi connection and player issues. Because quite a lot of players use the wireless portion that creates even more of a problem with compatibility. Even Wii Network Adaptor users will still experience some lag in games. Because of lag, certain characters will thrive in the online scene and it is much harder to escape throws from “giants” with lag. An outside factor which doesn’t really have to do with the game itself is playing this game on a digital tv with an A/V cable. Those of you adept enough at timing will notice “tv” lag when not using the component cable (standard tv’s don’t get this). This combined with an already laggy online is just bad news bears.
Those of you who are soki users will always cringe when you match an opponent and see that they are a giant user. You know what I am getting at. Although, its not the biggest problem (its a part of the game), you never know who your opponent will pick. Soki is a good character, but pretty much useless against a “giant” player and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, once you realize what the other player has chosen.
Also, with this being a Wii game, they will never patch or fix anything with this game because its on the Wii, whereas PSN or XBL would be able to add fixes. Although it would be really great if this game could get a PSN port, it will in all likelihood never ever happen, which is sad, because despite the online problems, its a good fighting game. Those not living in fighting game community oriented areas are stuck with laggy online matches which will just hurt them as a player as the only practice they will get will be friends who suck, training mode (which could be better as well, but I won’t get into that), and the arcade which is quite lame if you are serious about the game.
I know its pretty late to be bringing this up, but a good game like this doesn’t deserve this. Let’s make sure we let publishers and developers know that we want a solid game. I seriously can’t believe no one caught the “quitting matches” thing when they play-tested the online portion. Anyway, thanks for reading and sorry for all the nerd-rage.