Ugh, I’m so sick of this HDR vs ST debate. I’m going to try to not get sucked into it. I’ll just say this: It’s unfortunate that Japan never got a proper release of HDR (console and/or arcade). It’s also unfortunate that in the US, and basically everywhere outside of asia, arcades are dead. It sucks that the most convenient way for our two regions to play is different. But it is…
Anyway…Rambo and Ganelon made some really good points about characters and tiers. I agree with most of what you guys said. I do think our culture’s tradition of counter-picking has held us back. In a similar vein, I think our egos and our lack of sharing knowledge in the past (arcade era) also hurt us. The second problem is less of an issue today with sites like this, youtube, etc. There still is a bit of that though. BTW, that reminds me, I would love to hear you guys share some of the more noteworthy tricks and setups you saw being used in Japan if you can find the time to write some of that up. But back to the point, I do think more people are sticking with their character, or a small handful of characters, these days, but it’d be cool to see more of that. I think being really dedicated to a character is what allows players to go past the “these moves are good, this spacing is where I want to be” stage and into the nuances of a character - feeling so comfortable with your moves and options that you can fake things well or do things unexpectedly without any obvious tells, knowing the tricks and traps you can setup, knowing what traps you are vulnerable to and knowing how to avoid getting into them, and so on. I do prefer our 2/3 game format, but I’d love to see us adopt their character lock rule. I do think it’d help us level up as a community.
BTW, I have a funny related story. I rarely ever counter-pick, even in extreme circumstances. For example, I stuck with Sim for all 3 games against Tokido’s claw at Evo 2K7. But at our last Denjin ranbat I actually counter-picked for the first time in…I think ~2 years. I was going up against Cesar (MongoloRobokop) who has swtiched to playing mostly Cammy lately. He’s a great player and I usually lose to him. I also @#!% hate the Sim vs Cammy match, especially in HDR. So I decided what the hell, I’m gonna pick Honda just for fun and scrub it out against him. Now, I play Honda, Chun, and a few others as fun screw around alts in casuals. I’m not bad with them. But I’m not great either. I did OK early on, but after a couple of rounds he was onto me. He had my tendencies and vulnerabilities figured out and then used that to overcome what sounds like terrible match-up on paper to beat me pretty convincingly. I lost and I felt stupid. Later in the tourney I ran into him again in loser’s finals. I decided to just stick with Sim. I lost again, but it was a much closer match and a much more intense match. It really reminded me why I should just stick with my character and learn the nuances of the tough matches. In clutch moments, it’s a lot easier to deal with tough situations using a character that you’re really comfortable with. If you pick a character that has some good moves or tactics that are hard for the opponent to deal with, that sounds just dandy…up until you find out that they can deal with that. Then you’ve got nothing.
As far as tiers go, I absolutely believe they are valid. But I also believe that, for the most part, people should ignore them or just muse over them for fun. First of all, the tiers we usually talk about are for the best of the best players, on their best day, using robot precision. They’re meant to distill, at it’s extreme, if the tools that character A has beats the tools that character B has. That’s it. In reality, most of us play at a lower level, most of us don’t have perfect execution, and most of us have off days, certain bad tendencies, average or below reaction times, etc. Also, most of us play a lot online, where certain things work way better than they should and some fundamental strategies become too hard to do consistently. I’m not suggesting people should hone their lag tactics. But do realize, when you’re playing online that it does skew certain things. I mention all of this because people often want to use tier lists to find out “who to play”, because people want the easy win. It’s also used as a scapegoat sometimes when people lose. I guess it’s comforting to blame the chart rather than your play for losing. But that kind of thinking holds the player, and collectively, our community back. In reality, it’s more worthwhile to find a character that fits your play style, that works to your strengths, and isn’t crippled by your weaknesses. Then, learn the tough matches and figure out how to make them competitive. It’s tough, but it’s rewarding and is ultimately what makes these games so fun!
Anyway, thanks again for sharing your stories from Japan guys. I’ll listen to them all day long :lovin:
and Japanese players is that american care about winning much more. Which is a good thing when it matters (at tourney, MM). But not ALL THE TIME.