A scrub's-eye view...

[Holden]

...on tournament-level play.

Okay, so I DLed the new videos off SRK. THOUGHTS:

• Jesus, people weren't kidding, literally half the teams are Sagat, Blanka, and Someone Else, Usually Chun-Li.

• I've noticed that the Blanka players all keep blinking their electroshock on for half a second and then breaking out into a crouching LK, just... constantly... at random... even 3/4ths of the way across the screen. Why?

• Check out the Roll Cancelling exhibition, as Blanka zips right through a Tiger Shot, lifting that particular character from 'insanely overpowered' to 'unconditionally invincible'! A TRUE WARRIOR BRINGS ALL HIS WEAPONS TO THE FIGHT. Such as brass knuckles, and a hidden pocket full of sand, and...

• I think Bitoku had a point back in one of those SF3 threads— that the tournament winners are not the BEST players in the sense that they can use the most demanding characters and difficult tactics and whatnot, but more in the sense that they're able to get the maximum result from the minimum effort— witness thus the proliferation of Blanka players (A character anyone can use). Witness Bas pumping out simple Akuma dial-a-combos to chew up characters and spit them out. But most of all, witness the use of A groove, and such crowd-wowing combos as Geese's HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HP+HK+Raging Storm.

[Punchinello]

Oh, man, and am I ever glad you post this thread, cuz I got a lot to say on the matter. I spend pretty much 5 bucks a week on this game, and I tell you, sometimes it's just money I wish I could get back.

First off, that last point of yours, a point brought out by SAL, is in fact the one thing I've been trying to put my finger on forever now. Typical teams here in Montreal seem to rotate around the following : Blanka (by far, the most whored-out charac.), followed second by Sagat, and then Bison or Vega. I've devellopped effective anti-Vega rushdowns with my Rugal, but I'm still helpless when it comes to the rest. It's to the point where these armies of clone SRK-ists just confuse their wins for skill... I know it's not that, if I were to start playing Blanka, I'd probably start winning as much as them. But I refuse to, something I've told my friends many times. I'm not going to play with Blanka, Sagat or Bison or whatever - I want to be able to prove my worth with characters I actually like playing with - characters I chose because I felt a comfortable connection - hence Rugal, the ultimate bad-ass villain, Joe for being the funniest fucker in the biz, and Chun-Li because I'm soft and nostalgic. Maybe I'm just full of myself and I'm a self-admitted scrub, but these guys need to fucking way up to reality.

Now as for the poking game, it's related hand in hand with the above point. There's a direct-link between the characters and the poking game. Blanka and Sagat both have the unfair advantage of excellent reach (Blanka and Sagat both have excellent crouching fierces) and excellent combo ability. Essentially Blanka wears you down with solid pokes in fast combos, that have excellent recovery. Then add to the fact that he's got a reasonable guard meter that takes forever to crush. I try hard against the blanka ball attacks, but I deplete my stock quickly (I play N-Groove) with those counter-attacks. It allows me a little window to reverse the flow of the match by allowing me to rush him down, but as soon as I get knocked down, the ball returns to his court. Story of my life.

[Holden]

Precisely. The sad thing is that there are so few tournament players who will accept any question of their method or skills...

Basically, what I'd like to know is, what would happen if you took a high-ranking tournament competitor and stuck him with a team of saaay... Athena, Balrog, and Benimaru, and then threw him up against a very-good-but-not-awesome player with Blanka, Sagat, and Akuma or Chun-Li.

What I guess I'm trying to say is, I have my doubts as to how much of the victories come from the skill of the players involved as opposed to the weapons the players have chosen to stock their arsenal with. It's easy to be the God of All Poking when your attacks out-prioritize virtually everything in the entire game.

I've also noticed that you will not see a single match with any ratio layout other than 1:1:2. NEVER a ratio 4 or a ratio 3 to be seen, nor any 2:2 teams.

Before this comes off as sounding totally negative, there WERE a few real skill exhibitions going on, most notably Ken, Rock Howard, Dhalsim, Maki, and Yamazaki.

I was looking forward to Morrigan but she got rolled for lunch money. :|

[Punchinello]

Same here, the moment I saw Morrigan I thought I was in for a treat. Though the manic Yamazaki, Maki, Dhalsim and Rock's were better.

As for ratios, I think there's question of balance yet again. A level 4 character might not be as good as he should be, and is better at a smaller ratio. I've never seen Sagat go above 2 and do well. Usually he's a level 1 ratio bitch with Blanka being the butch.

The best example of skill I've ever seen however was a lvl 4 N-Groove Geese Howard. Not even the Blanka players could defeat this guy : he was actually good in the sense he could adapt to any adversary's playing style, knew Geese's auto-counters' timing like the back of his hand and popped raging storms at will, in effective manner. I played against him and was horribly defeated. But you know what? I didn't give a shit - hell, I was glad - that was a player I could look in the eye and respect.

[Holden]

Sweet.

Actually at this point I'm just waiting for t-bob to show up and explain how each of the matches is filled with DEEP INTRICATE PSYCHOLOGY we can't understand.

[Punchinello]

LOL, T-Bob is Montreal... I'd like to play against him someday (and get horribly beaten) :D

[Kadosho]

Hmm gotta get an idea to Tode
(so that maybe we can hold a small HerVert match
at the next sakura-con)
:idea:

[Punchinello]

For some reason I can't stop picturing TODE having big asian mamaries >_<

[Kadosho]

Tode=anna ohura?
(now that would be in a alternate world)...........:tongue

[EvilNeil]

I think the traditional defense is needed here - the simple truth remaining that these players want to WIN. Not master a characters' 72 hit redizzy or pick characters with a good story or sexy winposes ... the whole deal with this sort of tournament play is about winning at any costs - hence the mad rush to find the characters with the least weaknesses and most abusable attacks and become an absolute fucking nuisance with them.

That's why there's so many Blankas, and Sagats that's why there's the reliance on one particular ratio setup - because that's what wins. As much fun as picking cool characters and doing wacky combos may be for us mere mortals, it's a no-go in a tourney because it's unlikely to get anywhere. And if you've flown across the entire continent for a match you're not going to pick a Ratio 1 Dan are you?

From what I've read over the years there are occaisional upsets - people picking 'different' characters and proceeding to clean house with some new trick/bug they worked out - but in general it's all played very safe, as that's what wins 9 times out of 10.

As for these players not being the "best" - well it depends on your definition of the word. These people win tournaments and could stomp every other player in the world into the ground with ease - which has to count for something.

I'm not too sure on Punches' claim of "confusing their wins for skill" - as it sounds not only like sour grapes, but also, well, the fact I just find it hard to believe someone utterly devoid of skillz could win against someone with. It's true I've never felt the wrath of Blanka/Sagat in CvS2 (fuck, I've still never played it against another human ;_;) - so I'll reserve my final judgement until then, but it does seem kind of strange.

Expecting massive combos and psychic countering abilities etc. is, I think unrealistic - as it's not those things that win matches - it's tried and tested characters patterns and attacks and whoever has the best timing, the most nerve and flair - which is why I think these players still deserve a hell of a lot of credit.



(inserts h8 2 w1n joke)

[Holden]

A complete moron with Blanka couldn't beat Alex Valle with Dan, but quite a few of the people here could possibly do it. The gap is that wide.

Aside from that, you're absolutely right on all counts. My point was that the hugely inflated egos you see over at SRK are only justified if winning the fight is your only criteria. As far as pure ability goes, it's hard to judge when everyone's scrambling for characters and tactics that can be executed by a catatonic sloth and yet still dominate.

What I mean is, if it actually came down to pure skill instead of cheap wars, I think you'd see a lot more P Groove— combine a very powerful Super Art with Parrying, and you have hands-down the most dominating Groove— no questions asked. Parrying would compensate for all of the Groove's other weaknesses and provide an opening to unload that Super whenever you felt like it. Except that, in reality, P Groove isn't at the top of the Groove food chain, nor in fact is it anywhere near the top, because CvS2 Parrying is just too God Damned hard for most of the high-level tourneyfolk to use it reliably.

That's the point that rankles me— that people can claim to be 'the best' but consider Geese or Rock or Eagle's autocounters too hard to use, or the timing on Parrying to be too tricky to deal with.

[EvilNeil]

I wonder how long it'll be before someone says either "BZZZT!" or "uh ... no" in this thread? :D

[Holden]

Well, we already got the H8 2 WIN joke out of the way...

[Frostbite]

Holden:

"Jesus, people weren't kidding, literally half the teams are Sagat, Blanka, and Someone Else, Usually Chun-Li.". That's odd....if we've followed SAL's advice on "how to counter Blanka balls" (BLOCK HIGH!), Blanka should've been eating Gigantic pressures all day long.......

Punch:

About wins not equal to skill formula....thaz true.....I once got a 15 win streak in MvC2 with Cable, Juggernaut and Sentinel....but using the same team, against a different opponent (Blackheart, Juggernaut, Sentinel), I was raped...totally...

SAL (if you're reading this):

I;m sure you know what my CvS2 problem is (lack of human Blanka/Sagat players.....)......so I'll get straight to the point. Will Vega (Spanish fag)'s crouching forward/crouching strong outpoke Sagat/Blanka's crouching fierce?

[Punchinello]

Fuck yes, I wanted to start a thread about that : I need ANY tips to counter Blanka and Sagat's c.fierce. Especially with my precious Rugal :-( Those two are incredibly useful and pack hella damage, even on ratio 1.

[Fenix]

Damned if I know, I don't even play CvS2 with people anymore because of Sagat.

Any tips for Maki, Kim and especially Todoh would be swell.
Everyone else I use is pretty much in the movies.

Is Yang good?

-F.

[Bitoku Kishi]

Blah, I got too this thread late and now there's too many people I want to respond to. :wink

But instead, I'm going to post some general stuff first that hopefully adresses the points of several people at once.

1. Blanka and Sagat
These two are actually very weak, but as mentioned are also unbelievably easy to use. And they can be dangerous despite their glaring weaknesses. What do they have going for them? Damage and priority. What do they have against them? No useful specials at all. Of course, this can be a good thin if you're a scrub or a winning-whore. Basically, the thing about these two is that their Fierce normals in particular have good reach and insane priority. Someone who knows Sagat will actually almost never touch any button but the Fierce. Doing standing and coruching Fierce's all day can make Sagat incredibly dangerous if you're not careful. But there are ways to counter this. First, don't go too aggressive on him. You know that anything you pull can be cancelled with a simple touch of a button (the Fierce). So what you want to do is stay out of range of that Fierce, wait for him to try it, then counter. Basically, move around just at the egde of it's reach. If Sagat punches and you block it, there's not much you can do. But if he punches and just barely misses you, you can attack immediately with whatever you want, and he's forced to eat it. It's tricky and takes some practice. I've practiced enough aginst these two characters to get it down though, and can now take them usually without too much trouble using various characters. It's actually gotten to the point that I've contributed to "shutting down" Blanka and Sagat use here, because I've found ways to effectively exploit their weaknesses and dominate over them every time. And when other people see me do it, they learn how to copy it. As a result, the last local CvS2 tournament featured relatively low Blanka and Sagat use, except from less experienced people who just got destroyed in the first set of matches as a result.

2. Vega
This is in my opinion the only cheap character that really can pose a significant threat. Vega, simply put, is stacked in this game. He's never had this much priority before in any game ever. And he's still blindingly fast on top of that, which adds up to a really devastating poking game. And unlike Blanka and Sagat, Vega does have useful specials. An experienced player using all of Vega's moves to their fullest and cheapest potential can be a really tough nut to crack. The only thing coming closest to a weakness that Vega has is his low hit-to-damage ratio. When I play experienced Vega players, I usually try to trade hits as much as possible. Since his priority and speed is so high, it's really hard to land clear hits on him. But I've found that trade-offs almost never come out in his favor. And although his priority is high, it's not insane-high like Sagat and Blanka, making more trade-offs possible against him. So if you can't counter directly, try to go for the trade-offs. You lose life doing this, but Vega will usually lose a lot more, giving you the slight upper edge in the end.

3. Ratios / Teams
I played a 2:2 team in my last tournament. I realized afterwards that it's a handicap in this game. A 1:1:2 really is the best way to go, assuming you're good with all three characters. If you can use them all very effectively, then there really is a benefit to having it like this. It gives you more variety for one, and more tools to use against whatever other characters you're up against. And on the technical side, it seems there isn't enough difference between the ratios to justify losing a whole character just to up someone's power and defense a little bit. In other words, one ratio 2 character is not equal to two ratio 1 characters. If you have two ratio 1 characters operating at a good level, it's technically better than one ratio 2. And having one ratio 4 is the worst you can do, since it leaves you really limited against other characters who that one has a weakness to, and it's also nowhere near the power equivalent of three characters using a 1:1:2 ratio scheme. So I'm telling you this now, if you ever enter a CvS2 tournament, do use a team of three characters if you can. It really does make a difference. After the last tournament I added Yamazaki into my group of Geese and Eagle, and became significantly more of a threat within almost no time. This is what made me realize how much better it is. Since learning to use my new three character team, previous opponents I had trouble with were surprisingly easier to beat. People even commented a few times on how I'd become noticably even more unstoppable now. It was a shock to me actually, because I didn't think the ratio system was so out of balance in this game. But now I've seen from personal experience just how much in favor of three character teams this game really is.

- SAL

[t-bob]

Originally posted by Punchinello
LOL, T-Bob is Montreal... I'd like to play against him someday (and get horribly beaten) :D

I'd like to play against you too, and I doubt that I'm significantly better than you, if at all. I wasn't that great to begin with (I got fucking regulated at the CvS tournament I played in about a year ago--Tony perfected my Guile with his Sakura :dead ) and I barely play at the arcade anymore (kinda got tired of it). Needless to say, my skills have atrophied quite a bit. Also, if we meet at Daniel's, you'll kill me, I'm not used to the joysticks there (I have a CvS DC stick at home). So... yeah. If you want to meet up I'm game. Oh, and my nick contains no capital letters :)

I'm oh-so-tempted to jump in to this whole discussion, but I simply do not have the willpower to try and debate issues like this with you guys anymore. You have broken me. Congratulation, and a winner is you.

[Bitoku Kishi]

Originally posted by Punchinello
The best example of skill I've ever seen however was a lvl 4 N-Groove Geese Howard. Not even the Blanka players could defeat this guy : he was actually good in the sense he could adapt to any adversary's playing style, knew Geese's auto-counters' timing like the back of his hand and popped raging storms at will, in effective manner. I played against him and was horribly defeated. But you know what? I didn't give a shit - hell, I was glad - that was a player I could look in the eye and respect.

I thought I'd respond to this one specifically. This is the kind of player I try to be. The player that actually has skill, not just knows how to win. Seriously, is there anyone here who's impressed by a Cable raping people in MvC2 with nothing but cheap-ass Hyper Viper Beam tricks? Personally, it's been a long time since I've been impressed by anyone playing MvC2 actually. But let's also use the example of a Blanka that beats everyone using nothing but pokes. Or SF3's Chun-Li doing the same. Even though someone might win with those characters, you're still probably going to be much more impressed by a skillful use of more intricate characters that require more thought and skill, even if they don't win with them quite as much. The point here is that the difference between the ability to win and true skill is one that just about everyone probably acknowledges on some level - and this is proof. It's just all the SRKish bullshit that blinds people to noticing the difference anymore.

I don't care about winning. I care about playing my best. The Blanka/Sagat/Vega/Bison-whores may win consistently, but are usually looked down upon regardless of it. In my eyes, that makes them the losers. When you can demand respect and admiration with your playstyle, and have people truly look up to the way you can play, that's when you become the real winner.

(this has been another "Rant of the Day" production, courtesy of SAL inc.) :wink

[Holden]

Originally posted by Frostbite
"Jesus, people weren't kidding, literally half the teams are Sagat, Blanka, and Someone Else, Usually Chun-Li.". That's odd....if we've followed SAL's advice on "how to counter Blanka balls" (BLOCK HIGH!), Blanka should've been eating Gigantic pressures all day long.......

No Rugals in evidence. :|