Valhalla

[Hellion]

Monday, 16 Mar 2008
Mission Valley Mall
San Diego

Headed out to eat at Joe’s Crab Shack with wife coming up off I-8 exit near mall.
Proximity to the local Tilt was so close, had to squeeze in a few minutes (first time for better part of a year against anyone) on what had been for the past two months, arguably, a shitty cabinet.

Inside the mall three people hovered around the machine.
One was wrecking shop (apparently, with 4-8 wins to his name) with C-Guile(3), Vega.

I drop 50 cents and play C-R4 Ryu and get my ass handed to me.
cool

Next time up I switch to C-Guile, Ken, Cammy(2).
Normally low/lower tiers but only N-Nako rocks, Terry’s really rusty as well as Hibiki. His Guile falls to Ken, who in turn falls to his Vega. I eventually win with Cammy but I’m disappointed at how shitty my execution is; my dragon punches are not out on a dime, having trouble hit confirming to supers with all of my characters. I rely mostly on steady background pressure with booms or dancing back and forth with Ken/Cammy sneaking in a few pokes here and there, and when opponent inevitably jumps they eat an unblockable anti-air super.

I figure that’ll do as my ghetto game plan for the night.
I play someone a few matches, him sporting notably C-Ryo, sometims Chun and after a few losses Haoh. Eventually beats me after 3 matches, but I come back and win about 4 more before the local grounds keeper comes in with C-Ken(2), Blanka (2).

His Ken was pretty aggressive. In your face style. Destroyed my Guile in the space of 15 seconds, though I managed to get a full super bar somehow. Ken fared better but still lost. Began panicking, missed numerous shorts to super, though thankfully still had shorts to lvl 2 down pat with him. Cammy finally offed his Ken, but only after loosing half life.

His Blanka was aggressive as well, but Cammy fared better at forcing him to stay back, snuck in some aggressive throws and s.HP’s, punished with far s.HK’s and RC short arrows. Eventually though I was cornered but I realized something that may help me win the match, I was lower on life than Blanka, but he kept attacking all out. Hanging back may have helped him win the match, but I figure he was going for a guard break so he can land that super.

And super he did, after a pause in a block string he lvl 3’d, probably to catch my reprisal far s.HK and it ended up blocked. I punish this but my shoddy execution results in failed s.hk xx super. I try to hold my own defensively as Blanka continues to wear away at my life while I punish openings and eventually Blanka’s life is lower, but once again our meters are both at least lvl 2 or 3.
He goes for super again but it’s blocked, and this time I threw caution to the wind and just went for the reversal lvl 3 spin drive smasher and won.

I was impressed with his Ken vs my own. It was impressive how his tricks and near perfect execution fell to Cammy’s brain-dead turtling however.

Further, was impressed at how the cabinet was functioning properly.
Made a mental note to return (in about another years time, deploying again) but had to leave as it was getting late, and the wife and I were hungry.

Post your various ramblings here, or local scrub bashings or top player challenges (along with your defeats), or just ignore thread and move on

[xX_Deus_Xx]

oh i get it now. valhalla lol. cuz the games dead haha.

so at my local arcade where i play, i had a few problems going against a few players there. or if anything, more accurately, a few problems from a few techniques from a few players there.

although i was ‘pretty good (locally)’ at the time, i was still developing a personal playstyle. i probably have been ‘developing’ a playstyle for a really long time, actually. it started out with defense, which i got down, no prob. the next step was offense. i wanted an aggressive attacking offense. it was pretty hit or miss in practice however.

so one day, i’m playing a guy, a regular, who i have an extremely inconsistant record with. meaning that i would dominate him one week, and be dominated by him another. and i could never really figure out why. actually, i still have no idea why. we’re playing, and he’s doing good this week. too good. i’m getting streaked. and the more i get frustrated, the bigger the loss margin. i think to myself, man this is fucking stupid. YOUR PLAYSTYLE IS STUPID, FUCK YOU. all the while still trying very HARD to develop a new aggressive play style. i feel like i’m being so overwhelmed by bullshit that the when put the next quarter goes in, the thought in my mind is, i dont even give a fuck. i’m not even gonna attack. i just want you to know your playstyle is bullshit.

and it works. i stop moving in. i stop pressing an attack. i just mostly stand around. inching back and forth. looking for small gains. it all of a sudden the thought comes to me: “fuck making a playstyle, heres the playstyle: do the right thing at the right time”. it was magic. all of a sudden everything flowed so naturally. sure when he would stall the game, the game would stall, but it wouldnt be to an advantage. and like magic, i saw all the moments where i COULD BECOME AGGRESSIVE. and out of nowhere as i got better at this line of thinking, the amount of successful aggression i had increased greatly, while not necessarily working to have a forceful attack. i landed where i could, i stayed out when i couldnt get in, i let opportunities arise, forced new opportunities where i knew force would be successful, and did crazy shit when crazy shit would definately work.

to oversimplify: play rock when they play scissors, play scissors when they play paper, play paper when they play rock. just because rock is your favorite, doesnt mean you have to win with it. however when you just look to win, you’ll see more chances to win where you want to. you cant make the other guy play scissors. and he has to play scissors if you want to win with rock. so just play what beats what he will play. and if rock is your natural inclination, situations will arise where it will win for you, and where you’ll see that it will win for you. but this is an oversimplification, and a little bit of a bad analogy.

so in the end, i streak him, and go on red hot. completely dominating the arcade in cvs2 for the next 6ish months. streaking EVERYONE there. as i get better at “do the right thing at the right time”, my skill over theirs becomes so great that my gameplay starts to get brazen. i started playing my b-string teams, then my c-string teams. then with my knowledge, i actually now gave myself the ability to be super-aggressive, because all my attacks were landing. then the guys dont really want to play me anymore. after i streak everyone a round or so they go off to the other games they play. i start sitting out of the rotation more, playing more marvel. months go by, i forget the instincts of what i’ve learned. i come back and realize the “do the right thing at the right moment” mindset that i started out with slowly started tweaking itself to “overwhelming successful attacks”, which with so much time away from the game actually became “being overly aggressive and getting hit too much because i attack too much”.

lol, i guess i’ll just be a mediocre marvel player then.

[ZenFire]

Sometime between 2000-2002
I entered a console CvS2 tournament having played the game a few hours at home. I thought: “might as well give it a shot”. I win a match, then in my second one I get crossed up to death by a ken doing: short short, ender/crossup, repeat. I’m all confused because “this doesn’t happen to me in 3S…”. I vowed I’d learn to play this game.

Summer 2008
Battle of Destiny’s in London. Going down with some Dutch players. Play Justin Wong a few games and get my ass handed to me (proof is on u2be). Tournament doesn’t go much better. All the while I’m thinking “if only I had played better comp, I’d be better than this”. Later I look at the videos and realise I just played terribly, and for some reason my knowledge of the game doesn’t translate into good gameplay. Probably because I’m too busy trying to do a specific thing and not looking at what’s actually happening.

Fall 2008
Nobody plays CvS2 in Holland anymore. I don’t either outside of casuals with a friend of mine every 2-3 months. There’s a tournament in France and I decide to go, because people actually play that game there and I finally have a car. Since I always swore to myself that if I had the means I would drive down to tournaments, I took that 9 hour trip to Lyon. First day I play some games and I realise I’m not doing well because after every match I don’t remember what actually happened and why I lost. Before I leave some guy tells me I’m pretty good, and I could get real good if I tried harder.

Earlier this year
Me and my buddy have another casuals session and I was (sort of) on top of my game. Still screwing up a bunch but at least when I screwed up I remembered why for longer than a minute. I ended up beating him more often than he beat me, which, I’m sad to admit, had never happened before. All the while in the back of my mind I was thinking “Focus, focus, focus. Look at what’s going on. You can be good if you try harder”.

end?