I think another thing that can contribute to the fear is people thinking these events are like how SRK is. SRK can come off as being a pretty mean place with all the shit talking, but players should know the events are really friendly. New players also don’t realize a lot of the people talking trash in the tournament threads know each other already, and it’s not a big deal.
My first tournament was Final Round a good number of years ago, and I was at first a little nervous. I didn’t really know all that many players and it was really nice. I just walked up and asked some random person to play casuals before the tournament and he had no problem playing me.
I didn’t do anything big in the tournament but everyone was friendly, and heck that was before I switched to stick. So there I am on a pad in an environment where pad = noob, and everyone was still really nice.
So go out and play if you desire to, it’s an awesome experience.
I’ve entered a few in my area, I’ve always been nervous, but I figure the worst that can happen is that I lose. By going to these tournies it gets me motivated to try harder to become better at the game, and although I still suck, hopefully I can improve over time.
I may not win a match or even rounds sometimes, but you get to experience high level, meet people from your area and experience hype, and that alone makes the trip worth it.
If people can’t distinguish how people act on the internet to how they would actually act in real life. Then frankly they are complete idiots. You are anonymous so people say what’s on their mind more often, and are more likely to be dicks. In real life people are constrained by social norms so no one’s gonna say you are a stupid fucking noob to your face. Not to mention most wouldn’t have the balls to.
I think it more has to do with people not even being aware people play these games offline. It took me a while to realize this myself.
I just entered my first tournament a couple of weeks ago, and was super nervous and just buckled. I missed almost every combo I went for (and having a bunch of guys behind me pointing out every link I missed didn’t help!). It was awful. But I still had a blast, and it was great meeting and playing people. I learned a lot, and it really lit a fire under me to improve my game and get over my nerves. I can’t wait until the next one I can enter!
Because you can’t encounter new playstyles and strategies just by playing your friends. Tournaments like EVO bring people from all over the world.
How bad@$$ would it be to have a giant SF4 free-play in an EVO-like environment, getting to play against top players from around the world or even against non-top players from around the world. We’d all learn SO much more from something like that, than from a simple tournament.
Instead of a traditional tourney, why not have something like a super round robin format, with BP as the scorecard? Just hold it over the 3 days, with people freely playing each other in turns (winner stays on the machine, rewarding victory with another opportunity to fight and win). The people with the most wins at the end or the highest BP or whatever win.
That way everyone gets more play time. Everyone gets to play against everyone. Everyone learns much more from the experience.
The incentive to “play your very best” is still there. But, the nerves, anxiety, flukes, etc. are gone, because everyone’s play time is longer and extended over a longer period of time.
“Gimmicks” work once, twice, maybe three times on a person. Then they never work again. Like blocking Blanka’s regular ultra (low then high? What?)
“Mindgames”, on the other hand, can work forever with proper mix-up and variety. (Blanka’s CROSS-UP ultra mix-up)
A mindgame is a situation where you condition your opponent to react one way, all the while planning to punish them for being led into a trap. It can also be defined as a situation where you force the other guy to make a guess that is not in his favor (such as ELF’s four way mixup after a knockdown).
A gimmick is a technique that only works when the opponent is not familiar with it. Once they see how it works, they know how to avoid it.
Mindgames CAN incorporate the use of gimmicks, but I would definitely make a clear distinction between the two.
Because there are consequences for losing. This has a lot of positive effects: for example, people are less likely to try random risky bullshit if they know that losing means getting eliminated from the tournament rather than just the match being over faster and them getting to start a fresh new match 30 seconds later.
If there are no consequences for losing there’s not much real competition.
There is nothing in the world more pure, than going head to head versus one other person in a fighting game. No team to fall back on. No do overs. No lag to mess things up (usually). No potentially biased or humanly flawed referee.
Even the element of chance is almost entirely removed from good fighting games (by GOOD, I mean games without stupid interactive stage bullshit, or other nonsense like ring outs).
Its just you, the other guy, and two matches to figure out who is better. There is nothing more salient, more simple than that scenario…which is why I believe tournaments are considered where the buck stops.
I agree with this guy despite the arguments against it.
As for tournaments, I’ve only been to a couple, and I don’t really know what this “nervous” thing is… I found tournament play to be more comfortable than playing at home online. At least at a tournament you don’t have to worry about someone mashing a DP through an otherwise tight combo because of lag.
…and people only play their best at tournaments? That is kind of sad… I play my best at all time no matter the situation. Anything less would be a discredit to myself. I believe that if you aren’t doing something 100% all the time, don’t bother doing it at all.
…and to the original post…
Deviljin, I believe you’ve destroyed me at least once online when we ran into each other in Championship mode and I run into guys all the time that are actually very good players. I know know, you say it’s impossible for anyone good to ever play online, but I think there is a lot of unknown talent out there with Street Fighter 4. I mean look at Evo… yeah, top 8 wasn’t really a surprise, but some of the random xbox live players that showed up actually made the top players work for their victories. That’s pretty impressive for people that really only get to play online.
I can tell you that even playing just 2 or 3 minutes at a tournament can provide a lot of experience. I’ve been to two so far…my first being WCW and my second a local arcade tourney at Cameron’s.
I’ve learned a lot from just these two already.
Playing under pressure…is far more enhanced here so now playing casuals seems like nothing in comparison. My first tournament I was nervous and execution was horrible, second it got better…still not good but better.
I learned a lot about momentum and emotions. In the last tournament I was in I was pretty much deciding the pace of the match and had the guy scared and on the ropes…but I didn’t recognize that…the crowd was yelling…russshh himmm… but I was so zoned in and did not hear…so I kept zoning. It was a good lesson I would not have realized if it weren’t amplified due to the tourney environment.
In short…everything at a tourney is amplified…your emotions, their emotions, momentum, mistakes… and due to this you see and feel it more clearly than an everyday casual.
I went two and out in my first tourney and damn was it disappointing.
I was just shattered after my first game. It was against a Rufus and as a noob, I didn’t know how to deal with the dive kick pressure. Hell, it was the first time I’ve seen dive kick pressure done that fast. I wound up getting taunted and all I did was land a sweep. It was back breaking and got me into a nervous wreck.
I’ll admit that after that day I just placed down the stick and took a mental recovery from SFIV for a while since that beating was horrible. It was just disgusting.
It’s really what you decide to do with your game after that which classifies what type of player you’ll become. I’m finally comfortable with my game. I haven’t been to a tourney since, but I believe I can finally compete at that level. After sessioning with a bunch of friends which included an EVO semi-finalist, I finally understand what it meant to get your ass-kicked. That semi-finalist mind-gamed me to death to the point where I thought he was clearly reading my every reaction. To boot, most of the session he wound up playing Rufus which haunted me from before. But hell, after a while I figured out the match-up and learned how to deal with mind-games at a higher level.
I’m not afraid to get my butt wiped horribly by people anymore. As long as I can go back and think what I did wrong and come back better than before, I get better.
Funny, that is what happened to me recently at Crossed Fists.
First set, I went up against ActionHank’s Rufus. Just FYI, this is the guy who sent MARN into losers at MWC…so his Rufus is fucking scary as hell.
And it was the same. I got locked down and bodied. Chun has a really REALLY hard time against the dive kick rushdown (it stuffs her AA and wakeup options cold)…but the failure was MINE not some character stuff.
But what was funny about it…it was inspiring, not demoralizing. I wasn’t crushed, or embarrased…it made me love this game even more. It made me want to level up THAT much more.
Agreed, it would be badass to have a giant EVO-like free play, yes we can learn a lot, but it’s still not ideal. Especially for something similar to EVO’s caliber (1000+ entrants spread over 40 pools). There just won’t be enough time to have every single player play each other in each pool, especially if the round robin is done in a 2/3 format.
I feel like we’re just going to be going back and forth with this so I’ll finish up my arguments and what not with this;
Tournaments are fun, I join whatever I can. The atmosphere and camaraderie(sp?) is great and sometimes worth going just for that reason alone. Despite losing and what not, you’re given an opportunity to learn from your mistakes that you would otherwise not learn/discover playing in non-high stakes matches, play casuals if there are open stations, and meet new people, or even meet up with friends from another different cities/states, maybe even country.
Yeah I’ll vouch for ActionHank. The few times I played against his Rufus online I could tell the dude knew what he was doing. Good to hear he’s still doing well.
It’s funny that you guys bring up the Rufus vs. Chun match cuz I hear people say that it’s SUPPOSED to be in Chun’s favor. Like basically as long as you know what button to hit for whatever he’s doing he can’t get in. He has to work the mind games and position himself so it’s easier for you to whiff normals. If he can’t make you whiff he’s supposed to have a hard time but that’s just what I’ve heard. My local tourney scene has like 3 competitive Chun Li players (one who won the grand final match of a team tourney by himself) so I get to learn a good bit about the character even though I don’t play as her.
And he is a chill dude. After our match I got to talk w him real quick and he was super nice, very humble…you wouldn’t know that he had just bodied me for free.
I mentally fucked myself that match…when I heard his name called with my name, I remembered seeing him beat Marn at MWC and I mentally lost that match before I even started.
Go in a tournament thinking you can beat everyone and anyone. It does wonders to boost your confidence and gameplay. The less mind fucked you are the better.
I used to mind fuck myself all the time. Then I heard the podcast where CF said that he would join tournaments and have the “I’ll can beat that guy” mentality and applied it to myself. Works great. Now I don’t lose cause of nerves, but because of the difference in skill. Which may or may not be a good thing.
People do that in M:tG tournaments (bigger ones like PTQs) which is one of the major (and many) reasons why I stopped playing. They get in your face whether you’re winning or losing, which is just an unfriendly atmosphere.
