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[Riposte]

It doesn't help when the majority of folks in the biggest Capcom/fighting game website(Unity is all over the place) call anyone who wants adjustments a "scrub" or a "whiner".

Major Starcraft sites like Team Liquid are different? When people are serious they become exclusionary(elitist) to cut out the noise. Naturally.


Problems with balance are mostly exaggerated. They don't necessarily cut competition short. (Also NEVER take what Ono says seriously. Yang/Yun and any other balance mishaps was an oversight.)

 

[V_Arnold]

Streams turn foul in SC2 too. It's just that the players usually don't sink to that level.

No they do not. There is a difference between the commentators acting like weird gangstas and all the spectators laughing and shouting in the faces of the players (where they are in the same room next to each other), and between stream chat comments that are coming straight from 2006 World of Warcraft: Barrens zone chat. With added salt, bad intentions and ignorance.

FG's can be "real esports". On a technical level, regarding what the players have to do, they already are. It is only the dressing.

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )
2) Hype up the proper commentators (there are a few) more
3) Set up more mature tournaments where there are at least some sort of distance between a ravaging, hyping and shouting mass and the players
4) Give space to feedback and improve. Lose the east/west coast "war" (haha, dream on..), be more international if possible.

No event should be measured by the quality of its worst parts. //Like Stream chat or the forum comments//

 

[Trey]

definitely a snaking undercurrent of an issue. if starcraft 2 had the same level of competitive balance that is displayed in AE or MVC3, it would've been an esports still-birth.

imagine if roaches were 1 food and void rays still had their original potency one year after release. balance is achieved by small, frequent adjustments; not capcom's archaic pump and dump strategy.

Because fighting games take much more tactical acumen to play than any other game out there, based on reaction and rote memorization combined with knowledge of all the competitive characters of the game and their individual gimmicks. Shit would not go down well if buffs and nerfs were handed down frequently, because the meta doesn't get a chance to stabalize. More often than not an answer to an "OP" tactic is found over time within the game without prodding from the devs.

RTS =/= fighters. So "imagining" the situation outlined above isn't ideal when dealing with fighters.

 

[sixteen-bit]

I wonder if potential sponsors are put off by the relative... looseness of your average fighting game stream.

lol, definite possibility

 

[erpg]

Because fighting games take much more tactical acumen to play than any other game out there, based on reaction and rote memorization combined with knowledge of all the competitive characters of the game and their individual gimmicks. Shit would not go down well if buffs and nerfs were handed down frequently, because the meta doesn't get a chance to stabalize. More often than not an answer to an "OP" tactic is found over time within the game without prodding from the devs.

RTS =/= fighters. So "imagining" the situation outlined above isn't ideal when dealing with fighters.

SC2 will get a balance patch that changes 5 to 10 game elements every 2-4 months (patches are honestly mostly bug fixes and editor updates, though there are sometimes complete reworks for unit abilities). It isn't game breaking, and certainly better than the extended periods fighting games go until a new edition comes out. Or 2012's "its a new game here's 100 updates all at once, who knows how it'll work out".

But that's an ingrained console/arcade mentality. Ship the product, wait for the new version. Even if we're in 2011 with internet connected systems, it's limited by patching being a paid service due to console certification.

 

[TheSeks]

I say fuck getting lumped in with esports.

Fighting games are doing great on their own.

You don't see black jack being played at the Poker World Championships.

Yep. Not a single fuck was given for eSports/MLG/whatever this day. If I want to watch "pro" level SSF4 and Q3A, I can do that on streams specific to them. Don't need to go through crap like SC2 to find the times for those.

 

[SolarPowered]

uh..ok?

Im sorry i wanted your community to get bigger and more successful. Instead we can keep it where players cant even get to events on the other side of their own country, let alone compete around the world.

It came off as a bit condescending even if you didn't mean it that way. Also, EVO last year was HUGE so it comes off as silly when new guys come through, watch it, compare our scene to that of their smaller games back in the day and talk about how they'll bring us the riches.

Reeks of old colonial history(white men landing on native land and assuming that the barbarians lack culture and the word of God) haha.

Major Starcraft sites like Team Liquid are different? When people are serious they become exclusionary(elitist) to cut out the noise. Naturally.

There is a difference between being an elitist who competes in a genre/community that is exposed to tweaks/updates and being an elitist who sits high on their "old school" pedestal while shitting on anyone below just because they want a few tweaks and have not played SFII or some shit.
Then there are the guys who call for patience regarding tweaks when we are talking about Capcom who can't go a year without releasing a sequel.

Problems with balance are mostly exaggerated. They don't necessarily cut competition short. (Also NEVER take what Ono says seriously. Yang/Yun and any other balance mishaps was an oversight.)

Edit: Gonna adress this.

No offense, but I'm always going to take Ono's opinion over that of a random internet avatar when he straight up said that he wanted to make that character that people could cheer against(so the community could band together against them). This is not like theory crafting or tier lists where our opinions and analysis are backed by tons of raw data. He flat out said it.

No they do not. There is a difference between the commentators acting like weird gangstas and all the spectators laughing and shouting in the faces of the players (where they are in the same room next to each other), and between stream chat comments that are coming straight from 2006 World of Warcraft: Barrens zone chat. With added salt, bad intentions and ignorance.

FG's can be "real esports". On a technical level, regarding what the players have to do, they already are. It is only the dressing.

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )
2) Hype up the proper commentators (there are a few) more
3) Set up more mature tournaments where there are at least some sort of distance between a ravaging, hyping and shouting mass and the players
4) Give space to feedback and improve. Lose the east/west coast "war" (haha, dream on..), be more international if possible.

No event should be measured by the quality of its worst parts. //Like Stream chat or the forum comments//

1.YES
2.YES
3.Agreed
4.That is a no go. It is a friendly rivalry that gets the blood pumping. This is not some WWE spectacle with people throwing chairs. Profanity is probably the worst(not even that bad) thing about this particular one.

 

[Trey]

No they do not. There is a difference between the commentators acting like weird gangstas and all the spectators laughing and shouting in the faces of the players (where they are in the same room next to each other), and between stream chat comments that are coming straight from 2006 World of Warcraft: Barrens zone chat. With added salt, bad intentions and ignorance.

FG's can be "real esports". On a technical level, regarding what the players have to do, they already are. It is only the dressing.

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )
2) Hype up the proper commentators (there are a few) more
3) Set up more mature tournaments where there are at least some sort of distance between a ravaging, hyping and shouting mass and the players
4) Give space to feedback and improve. Lose the east/west coast "war" (haha, dream on..), be more international if possible.

No event should be measured by the quality of its worst parts. //Like Stream chat or the forum comments//

The only thing I agree with is the "proper commentators" (even through all the condescension) thing and the PC point.

Let's face facts: the most popular sport in America is Football. In the entire world, it's International Football. Those are hype events. It's easy to digest, it's face paced, and the crowd can almost always tell who's "winning" at any particular moment without requiring an intimate understanding of the game. Fighting games mirror these spectacles much more than RTS', which are strategic affairs interspersed with frantic showdowns that only old hats to the genre can follow closely in real time. So no, I don't agree that we should distance the crowd from these events, because that's a part of the charm. Skillful, in-your-face play producing a spectacle and getting the adrenaline pumping. Hype. Living in the moment.

If you want highly strategical, high effeciency, "perfectionist", undisturbed gameplay (golf), then the RTS genre lends well to that.

However, do not try to make fighting games something they're not. The scene could benefit from a knowledgeable but neutral and "dialed back" commentator along the lines of Seth Killian running the big show commentaries, but we should still have random players like Yipes involved in some form or fashion. They feed the community beyond the game itself, and we should not cut that off.

 

[Deadman]

It came off as a bit condescending even if you didn't mean it that way. Also, EVO last year was HUGE so it comes off as silly when new guys come through, watch it, compare our scene to that of their smaller games back in the day and talk about how they'll bring us the riches.

Reeks of old colonial history(white men landing on native land and assuming that the barbarians lack culture and the word of God) haha.

Fair enough. I did not mean it to be condescending, just genuine excitement/hope that the game could really blow up.

 

[ghst]

The only thing I agree with is the "proper commentators" (even through all the condescension) thing and the PC point.

Let's face facts: the most popular sport in America is Football. In the entire world, it's International Football. Those are hype events. It's easy to digest, it's face paced, and the crowd can almost always tell who's "winning" at any particular moment without requiring an intimate understanding of the game. Fighting games mirror these spectacles much more than RTS', which are strategic affairs interspersed with frantic showdowns that only old hats to the genre can follow closely in real time. So no, I don't agree that we should distance the crowd from these events, because that's a part of the charm. Skillful, in-your-face play producing a spectacle and getting the adrenaline pumping. Hype. Living in the moment.

If you want highly strategical, high effeciency, "perfectionist", undisturbed gameplay (golf), then the RTS genre lends well to that.

However, do not try to make fighting games something they're not. The scene could benefit from a knowledgeable but neutral and "dialed back" commentator along the lines of Seth Killian running the big show commentaries, but we should still have random players like Yipes involved in some form or fashion. They feed the community beyond the game itself, and we should not cut that off.

if you look very closely you can almost see the agenda being sewn.

 

[Trey]

if you look very closely you can almost see the agenda being sewn.

Refute me, then.

I mean, nobody says "let's set up high stakes Football tournaments apart from screaming crowds." Nobody says, "let's get rid of divisional rivalries in American Football, or countrywide grudges in IF."

Also, how did that "squash the EC/WC rivalry" point even fly in the first place? You expect two distinct groups of players competing at the highest level to not have rivalries (which are in good fun and promote "hype")?

 

[Riposte]

commentators acting like weird gangstas

Is this a nice way of saying "inner city blacks"? I guess you are referring to Yipes here and the style he speaks in?

None of the popular commentators promote crime or violence in anyway. In other words they are not "gangstas" or "thugs"-lite.

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )

What do you mean by PC? I'll take a guess and think it means making family-safe content, since that would match the general theme that FCG is immature.

Most major tournaments are "PC", no matter who streams it. Pretty sure PC is the policy of the LevelUp guys, which run things weekly.

3) Set up more mature tournaments where there are at least some sort of distance between a ravaging, hyping and shouting mass and the players

Not sure what this even means. Silence a cheering crowd?

4) Give space to feedback and improve. Lose the east/west coast "war" (haha, dream on..), be more international if possible.

I would say streams have been improving consistently, especially if you look at events annually.

East/West stuff is pretty much dead except for exhibition matches.


Also at the end of the day there is no reason to think appealing to your personal tastes(or your idea of "maturity") will get "Starcraft" or "League of Legends" numbers. For that to happen these communities would need to form in a similar way and that didn't happen because these games had very, very different audiences. Yes, become "more international", which(given how international FGC is already) basically could only mean explode in popularity because of the way the internet and gaming communities work in South Korea and neighboring countries.

Anyway I question the degree of your familiarity with commentators.

There is a difference between being an elitist who competes in a genre/community that is exposed to tweaks/updates and being an elitist who sits high on their "old school" pedestal while shitting on anyone below just because they want a few tweaks and have not played SFII or some shit.

There are two conversations happening which shouldn't crossover. There is game designing versus game playing. Game designing has no part in the discussion of a game's metagame and is just "whiny" noise. People focus on mastering the game have little interest in what the game should be rather than what it is. Ultimately what these forums deal with are "scrubs" who try to excuse their poor performance with the most banal of game design chatter: "That's not fair/right/balanced".

Also it should be noted that discussion on game design are pretty masturbatory unless you know a dev is listening.

 

[sixteen-bit]

What do you mean by PC? I'll take a guess and think it means making family-safe content, since that would match the general theme that FCG is immature.

Most major tournaments are "PC", no matter who streams it. Pretty sure PC is the policy of the LevelUp guys, which run things weekly.

He means PC as in the thing you probably typed your post on. A personal computer.

 

[Trey]

SC2 will get a balance patch that changes 5 to 10 game elements every 2-4 months (patches are honestly mostly bug fixes and editor updates, though there are sometimes complete reworks for unit abilities). It isn't game breaking, and certainly better than the extended periods fighting games go until a new edition comes out. Or 2012's "its a new game here's 100 updates all at once, who knows how it'll work out".

But that's an ingrained console/arcade mentality. Ship the product, wait for the new version. Even if we're in 2011 with internet connected systems, it's limited by patching being a paid service due to console certification.

Really depends on what you want to define "frequently" as. I agree that a yearly overhaul isn't any better than helter skelter gameplay changes, so some middle ground would have to be found.

 

[shuri]

I know its a matter of personal taste; but I can't stand watching fps competition. Maybe it's because it's hard to get a 'big picture' of whats going on, but I have yet to fully watch a match with interest, and I used to be super hardcore into cs from 1999 to 2006. It was pretty much the only game I played actually. I can watch MVS3 matches for hours tho.. Same thing with RTS competitions.. It annoys me to watch them :/

 

[Riposte]

If you want to know what a fighting game looks like which is constantly updating, looking at the new Mortal Kombat might be a good idea. I know there was a sentiment among players who didn't like that it was constantly changing.

 

[iconoclast]

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )

This is like saying console versions of StarCraft or Quake are important to RTS/FPS. It's been established for nearly two decades that the best players play in arcades or on console. Anyone who cares about the games is already playing them on the hardware they were made for; PC ports are just nice extras.

 

[Trey]

If you want to know what a fighting game looks like which is constantly updating, looking at the new Mortal Kombat might be a good idea. I know there was a sentiment that didn't like it constantly changing.

MK is updated rather frequently. I'm still on the fence about whether it's a good or bad thing, but I'm not active in the community so I only have an outsider's perspective.

Wait and see on that one, for me. The community itself seems offput by it though, definitely.

 

[Anth0ny]

No they do not. There is a difference between the commentators acting like weird gangstas and all the spectators laughing and shouting in the faces of the players (where they are in the same room next to each other), and between stream chat comments that are coming straight from 2006 World of Warcraft: Barrens zone chat. With added salt, bad intentions and ignorance.

FG's can be "real esports". On a technical level, regarding what the players have to do, they already are. It is only the dressing.

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )
2) Hype up the proper commentators (there are a few) more
3) Set up more mature tournaments where there are at least some sort of distance between a ravaging, hyping and shouting mass and the players
4) Give space to feedback and improve. Lose the east/west coast "war" (haha, dream on..), be more international if possible.

No event should be measured by the quality of its worst parts. //Like Stream chat or the forum comments//

I think the definition of "proper commentary" has yet to be found. I consider Yipes proper commentary. A little bit of hype in the commentary is what makes the fighting game community what it is.

I don't think separating the players/crowd is that important, but I do like the setup at tournaments like Evo (players on stage).

Honestly, east coast/west coast war has pretty much been dropped. With youtube, Shoryuken forums, sponsorships, more traveling... the beef is pretty much gone. We all know who's better and who's worse. It's just a friendly rivalry at this point.

USA vs. Japan, on the other hand... we all saw Evo. Street Fighter is becoming more and more international, and this is a very good thing.

 

[Makoto]

This is like saying console versions of StarCraft or Quake are important to RTS/FPS.

No, it's not. If fighting games had a larger presence on PC, then the big manufacturers would have a reason to sponsor these events.

 

[zerojay]

I can't consider Yipes as "proper commentary". He does very little explaining of what is going on, little talk about the mindset or how players are going about things. He basically is nothing but spitting out random words together to try to create a new catchphrase or yelling out "oooh! OOOH! OHHHHHH!" all day.

That said, if that's what the players and the community surrounding the games he commentates on wants, that's what they should get.

Also guys, remember, there's a huge difference between the commentary on a Team Spooky stream (which has that nice little warning about inappropriate stuff beforehand) and a stream like EVO (which Spooky was also involved in). The people who repeatedly show up on the bigger streams with more mainstream watchers know when they are at something that should be handled more seriously or not given a mic at all.

 

[Riposte]

No, it's not. If fighting games had a larger presence on PC, then the big manufacturers would have a reason to sponsor these events.

The scene/genre never evolved this way because it was based around two people sharing a monitor. RTS, FPS, etc was all about LAN parties. That would involve at least two PCs, but realistically a dozen. Can it change now? Perhaps, but who is going to jump start and then support that direction? No one, I imagine. It isn't feasible.

On other hand there are advantages to the way fighting games evolved. This format reduces costs and hassle. You can credit this to the explosion that Super Smash Bros Melee had. Those hundreds of cheap and easy to organize tournaments, like backyard wrestling. (You can also credit the character of the scene to it, how it worked with the atmosphere of the arcade.)

I can't consider Yipes as "proper commentary". He does very little explaining of what is going on, little talk about the mindset or how players are going about things. He basically is nothing but spitting out random words together to try to create a new catchphrase or yelling out "oooh! OOOH! OHHHHHH!" all day.

That said, if that's what the players and the community surrounding the games he commentates on wants, that's what they should get.

Also guys, remember, there's a huge difference between the commentary on a Team Spooky stream (which has that nice little warning about inappropriate stuff beforehand) and a stream like EVO (which Spooky was also involved in). The people who repeatedly show up on the bigger streams with more mainstream watchers know when they are at something that should be handled more seriously or not given a mic at all.

Yipes commentary can be both. It depends on the situation really.

Also Aris during EVO <3.

 

[Trey]

No, it's not. If fighting games had a larger presence on PC, then the big manufacturers would have a reason to sponsor these events.

This is using an older frame of thinking. As someone elucidated above, the FG scene is on consoles. Consoles are easier to push games through nowadays. Games like SC2 have the benefit of a strong pedigree and name recognition to get a solid install base: most RTS don't have that luxury. Starcraft 2 is the only big PC eSport breadwinner.

I think fighters want console sponsorship. MS/Sony backing your game means more to the world at large and getting backed by nVidia. How they would pull that off, however, I don't know.

I can't consider Yipes as "proper commentary". He does very little explaining of what is going on, little talk about the mindset or how players are going about things. He basically is nothing but spitting out random words together to try to create a new catchphrase or yelling out "oooh! OOOH! OHHHHHH!" all day.

That said, if that's what the players and the community surrounding the games he commentates on wants, that's what they should get.

Also guys, remember, there's a huge difference between the commentary on a Team Spooky stream (which has that nice little warning about inappropriate stuff beforehand) and a stream like EVO (which Spooky was also involved in). The people who repeatedly show up on the bigger streams with more mainstream watchers know when they are at something that should be handled more seriously or not given a mic at all.

Yipes is a "for us by us" commentator: he's pandering to people that don't need things to be explained, he's just propogating hype, if you will. He merely says what happens in an excitable way; he needs an analyst type to complement or replace him for casual viewers. I concede that.

 

[Makoto]

The scene/genre never evolved this way because it was based around two people sharing a monitor. RTS, FPS, etc was all about LAN parties. That would involve at least two PCs, but realistically a dozen. Can it change now? Perhaps, but who is going to jump start and then support that direction?

It's obvious who is capable of doing this. Capcom. The developers.

That's who it comes down to the majority of the time. Capcom needs to show some willingness to push these games to the big tournaments.

This is using an older frame of thinking. As someone elucidated above, the FG scene is on consoles. Consoles are easier to push games through nowadays. Games like SC2 have the benefit of a strong pedigree and name recognition to get a solid install base: most RTS don't have that luxury. Starcraft 2 is the only big PC eSport breadwinner.

I think fighters want console sponsorship. MS/Sony backing your game means more to the world at large and getting backed by nVidia. How they would pull that off, however, I don't know.

Who's sponsoring fighting game tournaments these days? MadCatz, Hori, maybe the developers in some very limited fashion and then some small time businesses like BrokenTier who have none of the bank like Razer or SteelSeries. It's why the prize pools are so small. It's why Mike Ross nearly retired from playing competitively. It's not an older frame of thinking, it's a proven frame of thinking.

By the way, if you think StarCraft 2 is the ONLY big PC eSports "breadwinner" then you have no idea of the state of eSports on PC.

 

[Aaron]

This is using an older frame of thinking. As someone elucidated above, the FG scene is on consoles. Consoles are easier to push games through nowadays. Games like SC2 have the benefit of a strong pedigree and name recognition to get a solid install base: most RTS don't have that luxury. Starcraft 2 is the only big PC eSport breadwinner.

DOTA style games are exploding right now. Will be up there with SC2 soon.

I think fighters want console sponsorship. MS/Sony backing your game means more to the world at large and getting backed by nVidia. How they would pull that off, however, I don't know.

The fighter would probably have to be exclusive to that console, and either MS or Sony would have to have some interest in throwing their weight at it. There is an upcoming Smash clone from Sony, but I don't know if that will be tournament quality.

 

[Riposte]

It's obvious who is capable of doing this. Capcom. The developers.

That's who it comes down to the majority of the time. Capcom needs to show some willingness to push these games to the big tournaments.

Why would they want to? How would they gain the cooperation of the players? Tougher than it sounds.

 

[ElFly]

EVO streams are really bigger than competitive Starcraft tourneys?

Really?

 

[Anth0ny]

Is there any reason why Capcom doesn't sponsor any events? Evo in particular? I mean, Ono, Seth and Niitsuma were all there this year, and for the first time, had their own panels. The stream was on Playstation Home. Evo is more than a tournament at this point, and Capcom can't throw any money into the pot? We just bought the same game twice in the same year for them for fuck sakes =/

 

[Trey]

DOTA style games are exploding right now. Will be up there with SC2 soon.


The fighter would probably have to be exclusive to that console, and either MS or Sony would have to have some interest in throwing their weight at it. There is an upcoming Smash clone from Sony, but I don't know if that will be tournament quality.

Probably, but it's up to the devs (namely Capcom) to show the big three that the tournament scene is the next scene for games. It's growing every year, and I'm sure Nintendo, Sony, and MS are noticing.

 

[Makoto]

Why would they want to? How would they gain the cooperation of the players? Tougher than it sounds.

Exposure is why they would want to. MLG attracts a far larger audience than any typical fighting game tournament and the potential is right there for Capcom titles. No way is it tougher than it sounds. It's just Capcom being backwards as usual.

 

[Vice]

1) Get them to PC's more frequently (yeah, dream on )
2) Hype up the proper commentators (there are a few) more

There are less informal commentators at every major and regular weekly/monthly series. Color commentating is important as well.

3) Set up more mature tournaments where there are at least some sort of distance between a ravaging, hyping and shouting mass and the players

That's a venue issue.

4) Give space to feedback and improve. Lose the east/west coast "war" (haha, dream on..), be more international if possible.

Most regional majors will features quite a few international players. Shadoloo Showdown(AUS) and Canada Cup(CAN) are all about international players showing up.

There hasn't been a big East vs West rivalry in forever.

 

[erpg]

EVO streams are really bigger than competitive Starcraft tourneys?

Really?

Once a year vs. once a month.

 

[ihearthawthats]

All I really know about the FGC is that everytime I try to ask questions in a stream or anything I get called every slur in the book.

No thanks! I'll stick to gameflying each new fighting game for a week or two until people get way better and then ditch it.

a high profile match is not the best place or time to be asking beginner questions. there are numerous other places/times to do so.

imagine during game 7 lakers vs celtics, a fan being asked simple questions about how to play basketball...

 

[Riposte]

Is there any reason why Capcom doesn't sponsor any events? Evo in particular? I mean, Ono, Seth and Niitsuma were all there this year, and for the first time, had their own panels. The stream was on Playstation Home. Evo is more than a tournament at this point, and Capcom can't throw any money into the pot? We just bought the same game twice in the same year for them for fuck sakes =/

Ono, Seth, and Niitsuma or anyone close to them do not get to decide what Capcom spends money on.

 

[Trey]

Who's sponsoring fighting game tournaments these days? MadCatz, Hori, maybe the developers in some very limited fashion and then some small time businesses like BrokenTier who have none of the bank like Razer or SteelSeries. It's why the prize pools are so small. It's why Mike Ross nearly retired from playing competitively. It's not an older frame of thinking, it's a proven frame of thinking.

By the way, if you think StarCraft 2 is the ONLY big PC eSports "breadwinner" then you have no idea of the state of eSports on PC.

It's still a niche, but growing genre. What FG need to do is try to capture the casual crowd in a way that SC2, by design, never could. FGs are the ultimate popcorn theater of gaming (mostly because you see everything happening at once, as it happens). The big name sponsorships have to start from someone, and from somewhere. Probably could start with manufacturers of monitors like ASUS, seeing as their shit is popular within the community.

CS was significant but has been cannabilized by SC2 on its own platform, and Reach and CoD on consoles. DOTA is upcoming I hear, but not there yet. LoL is almost footnote status compared to the rest of the MLG Circuit.

Did I miss anything? I'm prepared to be wrong, if you would oblige.

 

[Fugu]

imagine if roaches were 1 food and void rays still had their original potency one year after release. balance is achieved by small, frequent adjustments; not capcom's archaic pump and dump strategy.

The advantage of not patching the game so frequently is that the players get to analyze deeper what they have. Fighting games employ far less tools than RTSes and therefore single tools being imbalanced is far more apparent and easier to catch; therefore, the likelihood of such a tool failing to be recognized as imbalanced through play testing is slim. Given that, the likelihood of an individual move being unmanageable isn't large (assuming the game is playtested) and therefore the rammifications aren't extensive. As well, considering the pool of characters in SF is exponentially larger than the pool of playable races in SC2, the consequences of a single characteristic having balance problems aren't nearly as great, seeing as it is overwhelmingly likely that any given ability of a character will have differing rammifications on the possible matchups.

Capcom isn't exactly the flagship of this method; them being unable or unwilling to execute it optimally is not a fault against the notion of releasing a game and letting it go, but rather a fault against Capcom. Most competitive fighters are not patched more than once a year, and some -- like Guilty Gear -- have remained balanced and competitive despite years of absolutely no variation. Releasing a game and not patching it will leave the game just as balanced or imbalanced as it was when it left the development studio. The idea is to do as much balancing as possible while it's there.

Sometimes, it's beneficial not to have that balance. If MvC2 or Melee were at any point in their existence patched to correct the things that ultimately made them interesting, the competitive community for both would probably be laughable. They're both extremely contrived and imbalanced on paper, but both contain just about infinite competitive depth within the precedent established by the communities that play them.

 

[Anth0ny]

Ono, Seth, and Niitsuma or anyone close to them do not get to decide what Capcom spends money on.

Right.

But what I'm saying is, is there nothing the FGC can do to get Capcom's official support? If Valve could throw a 1 million dollar tourney for DOTA 2, Capcom could throw $10,000 into the pot for SFIV at Evo. These are the guys who will buy your fighting games, no questions asked. These are the guys who will recommend to their friends to

Spoiler

re

buy your games. No support is kinda lame, just considering what Valve and Blizzard do for their respective competitive gaming communities.

 

[SolarPowered]

Right.

But what I'm saying is, is there nothing the FGC can do to get Capcom's official support? If Valve could throw a 1 million dollar tourney for DOTA 2, Capcom could throw $10,000 into the pot for SFIV at Evo.

Buy other fighting games.

These are the guys who will buy your fighting games, no questions asked. These are the guys who will recommend to their friends to

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buy your games. No support is kinda lame, just considering what Valve and Blizzard do for their respective competitive gaming communities.

Which is exactly why they don't care. Why would you buy your kids an ipad when they are acting like N64 kid over an old 3DS?

Namco throws money at us because they NEED to. Capcom doesn't need to do shit once these folks have bought the game.

 

[Chavelo]

I got nothing by respect for Jared here. I may not always agree on some of his views, but damn it, he's doing way more for the community than some of the more well-known organizers and players by just pushing the red, uncomfortable button.

I find it weird when people like gootecks and James Chen commentate on articles, too. Can really see how small this community still is. XD

f Valve could throw a 1 million dollar tourney for DOTA 2, Capcom could throw $10,000 into the pot for SFIV at Evo...

Wait, the same guys that, for some "unknown" reason, hate participating on steam sales? I wonder why they don't help the FGC out...

Spoiler

THEIR FIGHHHHHT MONEEEEEEEEY

 

[Anth0ny]

Which is exactly why they don't care. Why would you buy your kids an ipad when they are acting like N64 kid over an old 3DS?

Namco throws money at us because they NEED to. Capcom doesn't need to do shit once these folks have bought the game.

But they didn't support Evo during the dark days of pre-SFIV either =/

 

[crimzonflame]

The 'looseness' and talking shit in the FGC just goes back the days of the arcade. I hope it never loses that.

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

turning people who are good at fighting games into internet celebrities was the worst thing to ever happen to fighting games

 

[Fersis]

turning people who are good at fighting games into internet celebrities was the worst thing to ever happen to fighting games

When did that happen? :0

 

[enzo_gt]

If growth means no Rush Hour, then I don't want to be part of this eSports thing. I could've written a long post elaborating, but I think that sentence sums it up quite nicely.

At NEC, I found it hilarious when Yipes yelled out, THIS IS ESPORTS, SOME SERIOUS SHIT. And all it made me think of how the community is divided on what constitutes growth and how some of these players take a liking to the current state and understand potential sacrifices they'd have to make to make the FGC big timer stuff.

 

[Chavelo]

turning people who are good at fighting games into internet celebrities was the worst thing to ever happen to fighting games

 

[Retro_]

I personally like how the FGC is. I like how most majors are open entry(especially the biggest tournament Evo) and just how welcoming the community is offline.

Sucks for the guys at the top who could really benefit from larger pots and more exposure. but for a majority of the playerbase I think the lack of barriers between known and unknowns is a good thing.

It doesn't help when the majority of folks in the biggest Capcom/fighting game website(Unity is all over the place) call anyone who wants adjustments a "scrub" or a "whiner".

You're delusional if you think this is something exclusive to the fighting game community and not present in every other competitive game.

and even then that's just online. It's rare for people who actually make an effort to go out to events to be met with elitism when they get there.

 

[Aaron]

I personally like how the FGC is. I like how most majors are open entry(especially the biggest tournament Evo) and just how welcoming the community is offline.

Sucks for the guys at the top who could really benefit from larger pots and more exposure. but for a majority of the playerbase I think the lack of barriers between known and unknowns is a good thing.

Same is true of Starcraft 2. It's a mix of old school and new blood, where how high a person reaches depends only on their skills. Though it's no surprise that people who have been playing and training the longest tend to end up on top, the finalists of the last GSL were both up and comers, relatively. Though Leenock has been on the GSL almost from the start, he's also only 16 years old, compared to some of the old timers like Nestea and MVP. While long time players can drop out completely if they can't compete.

 

[Nyoro SF]

No Capcom support means debate is meaningless.

Only they really have the power to get it on a bigger league. And they're not interested.

 

[SupaNaab]

Perhaps theres a time and place for the "loose" nature of fighting commentary. EVO this year felt considerably more professional than the weekly streams we see and for me it was still the best event going. If eSports leagues want a professional take, I have no problem with that. The weekly and monthly streams will still have our fighting game antics. I fear most that eSports leagues would sacrifice hype for golfclaps. The sounds of an audience are so paramount.

 

[Holy Order Sol]

If e-sports means censorship and the rise of teams to the detriment of individual players then fuck that shit.

Perhaps theres a time and place for the "loose" nature of fighting commentary.

Right, and that's anytime, anywhere.