• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Fighting Games Weekly | July 20-26 | No Gods or Kings, Only Tears

Consider the perspective of a top player. You don't gain much from playing with a lower level player that can't win games. There's a time and place for that but it's not always going to be at a major, where people are practicing for tournament matches or have limited time to play the few players at their own level. They're humans with their own priorities. Elitism when you're elite isn't always a horrible, unreasonable thing.

I would say elitism when you are elite can be a terrible thing if there is not a moderating influence. Also not playing a lower level player to bring them up stagnates your pool and you gain nothing from just playing your own level as well. I will say this whole thing is less a issue with the players since they are human but more of the overall scene. Which ain't as healthy as some would have you believe. But a new game is coming with probably a better skill curve. Maybe this can be corrected.
 
"Just imagine if the arcade scene was stronger in America. Street Fighter history would be so different. Daigo would be a top player but not the best, would he even be able to win an EVO?".

Oh man America being the best in SF would be so godlike. James Chen would be BibleThumping all the time.
 
I find that little point a bit batshit insane. Playing SF4 because it's what others play. None of you guys play DOA but that's my shit. Won't ever follow some crowd to the game I don't care for.

How is it insane? I'd love to learn CvS2, but why would I play that game when literally almost no one plays it? I cant go to my locals and get games in, so why would I dedicate the time and energy to learn that game? It extends to other games that dont have a good following.

Playing a game with a large following ensures that there's always someone to play and if you are new to the series you can level up at a reasonable rate, even if many are above your level. The same can't be said for games with less support.
 
What I don't get about that salt is, why does the US pros think their scenes are better than others? They should know that they are MUCH better than the base. They should be the ones trying to better it. Champ I seen did some work. Not sure about the other though.
From what I've seen in my local scene a lot of it has to do with bad and OK players not being willing to put in work into improving and the top player just getting frustrated. At the same time, if you're genuinely interested in improving and show that you are getting better they'll help you out. There are plenty of players that aren't the best who get helped by players like Justin, Champ, Choi, etc. but, when a large part of the scene just complains about a game being random or ass based only on the fact that they lose then it can feel like a lost cause.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";172533494]The theme of this year's EVO is that hard work pays off. Lots of champions trying to coast on their success and fundamentals got bopped by people putting in the hours. Upsets everywhere.[/QUOTE]

Which is a really good thing for the growth of this scene. If you have the same people winning every year, not only does it get boring but I imagine people are also discouraged from entering in the future.
 
What's happening to KBR sort of reminds me of what happened with wolfkrone. I remember when Justin and all his friends hated on Wolfkrone because I think he paused and krone took the game or something like that. They threw shade at him for years after that.
 
Who seriously doesn't find big bodies hype? come on now

I can understand why. Its like big body in anime games. They basically brute force their way in and once they are in they just overwhelm you with this pressure and you just gotta pray you don't crack.

Look at pot in GG, tager in BB, Kanji (well he isn't that big but he has a shit ton of hp) in persona.

I mean if you are a person that likes the clean play of neutral, its easy to see why they don't like kbr's team.

I myself can't stand apologyman's team once he lands the first hit against anybody that doesn't know or have a way out of the setup.

I remember when Justin and all his friends hated on Wolfkrone for like no reason. I think he paused and krone took the game or something like that and they threw shade at him for years.

That wasn't it. Justin and Wolfkrone agreed to a split. Krone won the gf but didn't want to split anymore
 
How is it insane? I'd love to learn CvS2, but why would I play that game when literally almost no one plays it? I cant go to my locals and get games in, so why would I dedicate the time and energy to learn that game? It extends to other games that dont have a good following.

Playing a game with a large following ensures that there's always someone to play and if you are new to the series you can level up at a reasonable rate, even if many are above your level. The same can't be said for games with less support.
I find it insane to play something you don't like just for the sake of having something to play. If what I like is dead, I simply move on. I did with sfxt with it being half dead and I am too ass to compete so I dropped it and found something else to my liking. Maybe I'm an outlier but you can't find me playing something I don't like. I had a great guild in wow, when that game lost me, even though I had some people I had great times in I just dropped the game.

difference is they are sponsor, they have to play for exposure
In that case one should be professional and never be passive agressive just because the game you play you don't like.

Who seriously doesn't find big bodies hype? come on now

Well in DOA some don't like big bodies because their combos don't work. I find them hype because I adjust combos and they DO work. :P
 
I find that little point a bit batshit insane. Playing SF4 because it's what others play. None of you guys play DOA but that's my shit. Won't ever follow some crowd to the game I don't care for.

Well, if you win at poverty games, you don't gain the respect you do by doing well in main games. So if you're playing for that validation, you're going to want to play main games.

Also EG isn't going to be sponsoring any Arcana Heart or Outfoxies champs.

As much as Ricki doesn't like KBR stylistically, I love him for that same reason. I love big bodies and scrambles.

Cliquishness is going to happen in any community. Some people are nicer than others- but no one's obligated to play you.

You will find that the poverty communities are the nicest- as they're just happy people are playing their game.
 
I remember when Justin and all his friends hated on Wolfkrone for like no reason. I think he paused and krone took the game or something like that and they threw shade at him for years.
There's a real reason for it- Wolfkrone tried to back out of a pot split after he won. Don't remember the resolution of it though.
 
I remember when Justin and all his friends hated on Wolfkrone for like no reason. I think he paused and krone took the game or something like that and they threw shade at him for years.

You know people bring up the pot splitting incident but this was probably the origin point.
 
I will say this, I know some people don't like KBR for personal reasons outside the game and I am not going to tell them to put that aside to congratulate him over a game. Nobody should be sending him threats or harassing him, but seriously those people shouldn't be told they are just haters. Real life shit happens outside the game.

That being said anybody going in based on gameplay is pretty dumb.

Also it sucks Neo got hit but the instant gofundme is both sketch and in poor taste.

This.

All of y'all saying he should be getting respect and there's something wrong with you as a person if you don't like him

Just stop with that
 
I would say elitism when you are elite can be a terrible thing if there is not a moderating influence. Also not playing a lower level player to bring them up stagnates your pool and you gain nothing from just playing your own level as well. I will say this whole thing is less a issue with the players since they are human but more of the overall scene. Which ain't as healthy as some would have you believe. But a new game is coming with probably a better skill curve. Maybe this can be corrected.


Yes, of course, it's a balance.

I'm just saying, consider the top players' perspective if you're basing your opinion of them based on an experience at a tournament. There's people who will tell you I'm super approachable, will play anyone and will talk your ear off with match up advice. Then I'm sure there's many who will day I didn't have much to say and didn't play them. It's not black and white.
 
Consider the perspective of a top player. You don't gain much from playing with a lower level player that can't win games. There's a time and place for that but it's not always going to be at a major, where people are practicing for tournament matches or have limited time to play the few players at their own level. They're humans with their own priorities. Elitism when you're elite isn't always a horrible, unreasonable thing.

I have considered their perspective and its reasonable, they have to train before the tournament so they can warm up and get a grasp for the competition. My only problem is that its only at majors where you will find that level of competition and be able to play the best. Believe me, if I could go to locals that are outside of my state, I would in a heartbeat. Also, I think elitism is pretty unhealthy for a community as small as this cause it acts as a gate and makes it difficult for people who genuinely want to learn the game and limits the growth of the community. Not only that, it kind of paints a negative image. Sure, top players are people too and they can do whatever they want and no one can stop them, but I feel they need to help other people level up. They once started out like anyone else, bad at the game, and put in the work to get good. Surely they can understand that and be a little less elitist when it comes to casuals. Fortunately enough, I can some of the best players in SF at my scene but that isn't always the case for other people.

isn't he the sandbagging guy? I remember that name from the documentary

Yeah, he's the sandbagging guy. Dude is legitimately the godfather of falcon players since he put him in the limelight. I don't know what he's doing nowadays but I certainly felt a level of depression/social anxiety when it came to him. Hopefully he's doing alright.

This.

All of y'all saying he should be getting respect and there's something wrong with you as a person if you don't like him

Just stop with that

Respect as a player =/= Respect as a person outside of the scene

Ryan is a scumbag but everyone (mostly I guess) respects him as a marvel player. Need I cite more examples?
 
I think Rising Thunder presents us with a great opportunity. We should all go hard on Rising Thunder, get in that hyperbolic time chamber, grind it out at 100x gravity, and put some FGW regulars on the main stage at EVO. Show everyone that NeoGAF is a force to be reckoned with!
 
In that case one should be professional and never be passive agressive just because the game you play you don't like.

You are saying this to team that sponsored Idra. You think fchamp was bad calling people "faggots"? Idra was fchamp x100 in terms of being an asshole and they kept him for a very long time even when he wasn't winning.

You know what it took to get him booted from the team? He wished somebody to die of cancer and got a warning. A week or so later he said this to his fans

“nope you’re all a bunch of fucks,” replied IdrA. “it just so happens i get paid to treat you like it. it’s fucking awesome.”
 
Well, if you win at poverty games, you don't gain the respect you do by doing well in main games. So if you're playing for that validation, you're going to want to play main games.

Also EG isn't going to be sponsoring any Arcana Heart or Outfoxies champs.

As much as Ricki doesn't like KBR stylistically, I love him for that same reason. I love big bodies and scrambles.
I play for fun more over validation and seeing how people treated KBR I don't think I'd want validation from fairweather people to be honest.

From what I've seen in my local scene a lot of it has to do with bad and OK players not being willing to put in work into improving and the top player just getting frustrated. At the same time, if you're genuinely interested in improving and show that you are getting better they'll help you out. There are plenty of players that aren't the best who get helped by players like Justin, Champ, Choi, etc. but, when a large part of the scene just complains about a game being random or ass based only on the fact that they lose then it can feel like a lost cause.

That is where the games will have to lessen their frustration factor and have less of the people not willing to put in work to improving and that will take a bigger player pool. I am a firm believer if the skill gulf is too large the lesser player will never learn unless the other player is a special breed of person. I understand why it's like that in sf4 that game came off with the wrong foot and with too much arcane systems never got people to learn the proper way.

Which is a really good thing for the growth of this scene. If you have the same people winning every year, not only does it get boring but I imagine people are also discouraged from entering in the future.
That's the key. Not making people get discouraged. I know that's the number one thing that hurt Tekken. I hope it gets over that with this iteration. :)
 
I would say elitism when you are elite can be a terrible thing if there is not a moderating influence. Also not playing a lower level player to bring them up stagnates your pool and you gain nothing from just playing your own level as well. I will say this whole thing is less a issue with the players since they are human but more of the overall scene. Which ain't as healthy as some would have you believe. But a new game is coming with probably a better skill curve. Maybe this can be corrected.

Agreed. Japan bypasses this issue by having the arcade scene as a mechanism for growth. Constant competition in an environment that has stakes in addition to some resources from other players really helps folks there to improve their game naturally. The US lacks this in a few areas in addition to being geographically distant. So we need to rely on information from each other to improve. Intermediate to lower-advance players need more than just play folks of similar skill, They to get perspectives on their own play to realize how to improve from advice or seeing how their play fairs against players of higher skill.

From a lot of the content for players to improve I've seen from the FGC, it's a mish-mash of combos and little tricks within the game system. Not many in the way of fundamentals, not many in the ways to approach match-ups, and not many on how to think about the game in the middle of a match. It's all piecemeal and lacks a cohesion.

I can only think of one person that creates content like that and it's Juicebox. We need to clone more Juiceboxes.
 
This.

All of y'all saying he should be getting respect and there's something wrong with you as a person if you don't like him

Just stop with that

Why say anything then?

Just say congrats or nothing. If hate is coming from somewhere else not the actual tournament win, just say it or nothing.

Nobody is saying you have to like him. I give honest respect to plenty of people in competitive things i dont like.
 
Who knew big bodies would cause all these tears. (in general)

Kbrs team just as cheap as zero lmfao. Just in a different format.
 
Someone made a pretty good post about gofundme stuff after neos thing went up.

https://mobile.twitter.com/FIRELORD_chemie/status/623294444180082688

Agreed completely. I remember seeing a post a few weeks ago where someone in the fgc got their car window smashed and decided to throw up a gofundme which got funded.

For me it's disguting how people try to take advantage of their fame... I know Neo wasn't the one that launched it. But his allowing it...

I don't know who of the crew I saw posting "His friend are trying to help him". So why not help him with your own money?

I can stand at situation like the Chris Hu one, or Jan's one cuz both are major cause. Even for the car crushed, cuz it was streaming material and that also affects people that follow those broadcast. But thinks like this one or the year people funded Dieminion to EVO I can't...
Many people in the FGC have been on those situation, but they haven't had the same chance due not having "fame".
I saw a RT on Justin twitter. A girl posted that she lost her bag with 400$ and two amiibos. Do you think somebody it's going to start a gofundme for her?
And that's US mentality. 100% sure you won't see that coming from Europe or Asians players...
It's rough and I'm sorry for him, but everybody has their own problems without chance to having people trying to "promote" them...

If people want to help you, they will. No need for begging
 
"Just imagine if the arcade scene was stronger in America. Street Fighter history would be so different. Daigo would be a top player but not the best, would he even be able to win an EVO?".

Anyone know how the two countries matched up in the Times of actual us arcades?

All I know is valle lost to daigo in a close-ish set in 97 but I was under the impression Japan was still ahead in the 90s
 
How do they come up with rankings for this? The fact that most of BBCP top 10 are American players already makes this thing look suspect as hell.

It's a point system based on where you've placed at various tournaments. While SF4 has all of the pro tour tournaments in the database, their data is less complete for some of the smaller games. Looks like most of their BBCP data is for American tournaments: http://rank.shoryuken.com/rankings/tournaments/BBCP
 
I really think some of the bad behavior that's natural to communities- it's prob going to get worse as the money increases. Money brings out the worst in folks.

I just hope the folks I like don't lose their way.

I play for fun more over validation and seeing how people treated KBR I don't think I'd want validation from fairweather people to be honest.

I understand that entirely as someone who played VF for years when no one else locally would. Many years ago I actually stopped going to tournies because they wouldn't play what I like- and I could only play it online.

I wish I still had that love, it's so much harder now that I'm washed up.
 
Agreed. Japan bypasses this issue by having the arcade scene as a mechanism for growth. Constant competition in an environment that has stakes in addition to some resources from other players really helps folks there to improve their game naturally. The US lacks this in a few areas in addition to being geographically distant. So we need to rely on information from each other to improve. Intermediate to lower-advance players need more than just play folks of similar skill, They to get perspectives on their own play to realize how to improve from advice or seeing how their play fairs against players of higher skill.

From a lot of the content for players to improve I've seen from the FGC, it's a mish-mash of combos and little tricks within the game system. Not many in the way of fundamentals, not many in the ways to approach match-ups, and not many on how to think about the game in the middle of a match. It's all piecemeal and lacks a cohesion.

I can only think of one person that creates content like that and it's Juicebox. We need to clone more Juiceboxes.

And Persia.
 
Japan is full of scrubs too, it's just that the density of the population and player base makes it possible for the top players to constantly play each other and improve.

The scene for niche games like MvC3 might be small relative to the big arcade games, but in terms of the number of strong players who constantly practice with each other I figure it would be comparable to any significant local scene in the US.

I'm wary of assigning any sort of oriental mysticism to why the Japanese are so strong at so many fighting games, because the culture differences in the FGC don't seem as significant as people make them out to be, or atleast not as significant as the difference between NA and Korean esports.
 
Finally at the airport and able to type more than just a few words at a time on my phone.... and I'm left with nothing to say. You all know what happened. Great seeing Strikevillain, Smedwicks, soakrates, Mrs. Strikevillain, Dadwicks, Master Milk, Juicebox, Master Milk, gutabo, Anne, the count and scruffs, notworksafe (thanks for the casuals in your room too, much appreciated), Shouta (thanks for the set), Markman and anyone else I might have missed.

Big thanks to Rentahamster, though, for being the MVP of the weekend. Excellent host, fun to chill with and nigga sold me on wanting to visit Hawaii. Sickest dude on gaf confirmed,
 
Who knew big bodies would cause all these tears. (in general)

Kbrs team just as cheap as zero lmfao. Just in a different format.

Nigga... You must be out of your damn mi....
1.0
 
Just got back from Evo, man what a crazy event. GAF saying duck monster status with me though -- except for Smedwicks, interestingly enough. Come on guys, anime games aren't scary. It's not like you're going to catch moeitis and start growing hugpillows out of your forehead due to exposure to Melty Blood or Arcana Heart.

I do agree with what was posted earlier with regards to Tekken 7. I originally was disappointed that the game wasn't reworked more in terms of both mechanics and character designs, but I suspect that they ultimately decided that all of the new stuff added in TTT2 was more offputting than anything else. I can see how that would stink for the hardcore TTT2 players, but it definitely felt less stressful playing T7 with less to worry about.

This.

All of y'all saying he should be getting respect and there's something wrong with you as a person if you don't like him

Just stop with that
I don't think most of the salt is due to what you and Anne are hinting at. I've never had any problems with him myself (he's also been super welcoming and humble) but I also know some people in the greater FGC that I generally hold in high regard have some real problems with him (and not just "lol a non-god won UMvC3 at Evo this year with a scrubby team, fuck this noise") and honestly, I'm not really sure what to think.
 
Now this is the discussion I like to see.
Shame some of you just see me as the pervy guy :P

Idra got sacked because a money man who wanted good pr got a hold of the EG guys and he got smacked.

That man was coddled and never had proper people training.

But yeah it's really one the community to band together with the next game and try to grab a much bigger spread of people so the skill curve is more gradual. If somebody progresses on their own curve naturally it will go up in aggregate. I think that's how the Japanese scene goes with arcades. We need the perfect size of player pool to properly rank up lower skilled players. I spent like 6 months playing with folks too much better than me and I never really ranked up.

But I found a friend much closer and we both did skill up quite a bit in sf4. I would have never gotten to the point I was in with DOA if I did not find my skill pool and now every once in a while I can hang with the pros and now can see where they are at. But I only got there quicker and more effecitvly with a more gradual skill curve.

You must always be mindful that there are not too much profound skill gaps. The US is riddled with this.
 
cmon man do you really believe this
team big bodies is pretty dumb but boy howdy zero and morrigan are way dumber

Morrigan a different style of play, but zero 1 touch ur dead into mix ups, Hulk 1 touch ur dead into mix ups?

OK maybe not as cheap as zero but deff same format.

Nigga... You must be out of your damn mi....
1.0

Hulk drones is some vile shit, adding on lariat? Come on son, that shit is "cheap" but everything in marvel is cheap. I play zero, I know what's good with the cheap shit. I've played dope as hulls who use drones, it's some cheap shit but u go on about ur day and play nigga.
 
Finally at the airport and able to type more than just a few words at a time on my phone.... and I'm left with nothing to say. You all know what happened. Great seeing Strikevillain, Smedwicks, soakrates, Mrs. Strikevillain, Dadwicks, Master Milk, Juicebox, Master Milk, gutabo, Anne, the count and scruffs, notworksafe (thanks for the casuals in your room too, much appreciated), Shouta (thanks for the set), Markman and anyone else I might have missed.

Big thanks to Rentahamster, though, for being the MVP of the weekend. Excellent host, fun to chill with and nigga sold me on wanting to visit Hawaii. Sickest dude on gaf confirmed,

Thanks for the set, man. Wish I was more in practice and better in SF4 form, even if it's a bad match-up.

Also that last line slays me considering how straight-laced you seem, lol
 
Top Bottom