Competitive gaming

[Obiwanshinobi]

I've been thinking about competition in games; wondering how serious it can truly be without money and hype surrounding some sports.
To narrow the digression a bit, do you know about any 1vs1 fighting game that is "sucker punch-proof"? That cannot be (competitively) played any wrong way, no match can be won by pure luck etc. Everybody who tried to be serious about such games seems to have a story to tell how they practiced a lot (with human opponents whenerver possible), only to get beaten by a newcomer at some point. Apparently this is the genre's inherent weakness.

I realise that serious studies on the subject would be quite laborious, with a statistical population ranging from veteran tournament winners to toddlers, all ages, genders and so on. Impairments even (I read in some games mag back when about a blind gamer whose favourite genre were those 3D fighters). On top of that, test subjects would need to be separated from each other and research workers alike. Not knowing who they are playing against too.
At this point I can imagine only military conducting such an experiment diligently.

I'm not into the genre, but Virtual-On and Bushido Blade seemed to me like the developers tried to make them most fair (for lack of a better word, rather than "compulsive", "fun", "satisfying" and whatnot). Did the people who played those against human beings feel that way?

[KAI]

Deep mechanics = wide margin between Pros and Casuals.
I've lost some matches against noobs on Tekken, but I don't lose on GG.

[Ruldra]

I believe the reason why noobs win a few matches against pros is not because of the "genre's weakness", but because their play style is totally unpredictable. Pros are usually caught off guard and end up being beaten a few times. But if you keep playing you can learn their moves and win in the long run.

I know a few experiences of pros being beaten by noobs, but in all occasions the pro eventually learned how to counter all his moves and the noob couldn't win any fight anymore.

Being unpredictable in a fighting game is a powerful tool. One of the reasons I love playing as Mokujin.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The question is, how tabula rasa can those who get to play GG be to begin with? I assume it's virtually always dude on dude action, with all rivalry that comes with the turf.
I was playing the internet game today ("Power Stone" being the main course this time around) and stumbled upon this:

My fighting career was brought to an abrupt halt back in the mid nineties. I spent a whole summer practising on the SNES port of Primal Rage, only for my baby sister to demolish me in 3 straight games. She was too young to even button mash (it was more "button gnawing";) and she had to ask me on numerous occasions which player she was.

Never again.

So he probably practiced against CPU, then underestimated his opponent, but sobering story all the same.

[KAI]

読めない.

Not to be able to read your opponent's actions (Yomi) is a big disadvantage.
Tekken and VF are a good examples of games were the adversary can be terribly unpredictable. That's why noobs love 3D Fightans.

[Hagane]

A beginner may perhaps get a few wins against a good player in a fighting game. Against a pro/elite player? Forget it.

In the best games, an advanced player will struggle to get a few wins against an elite one. A beginner has no chance.

[Ganelon]

Are competitive games serious? As some folks here know, I play Super Street Fighter II Turbo (ST) competitively. Was there money for winning? Yes, but not nearly worth the time involved even relative to working in fast food. Was there hype? Well, certainly not as much as in major league sports and even more high-profile games. Despite that, I haven't played much the last 2 years but when I won the national qualifiers for SBO, I'm fairly certain I had already put in 4000+ hours into the game. I know folks who've put down 1000+ hours in ST and was never able to win a tourney in a dozen tries. ST may just be a game—well, the longest-running tourney game ever—but even then, anybody gunning for the top needed to have extreme dedication. How does someone find that attitude? Love of the game, curiosity to learn, strong work ethic, hunger to win... there are plenty of facets necessary and even one missing piece means that player will never make it high up the mountain.

The complaints you often hear about "games won by luck" are from 3 situations:

a) the 2 players weren't very good and weren't very different in skill
b) the loser was upset with the outcome
c) the game favors luck much more than skill

There's a significant difference between players vying for the top spots and those who are casual competitors. For example, I'd say over 90% of even SRK members are casual competitors. That percentage approaches 100% when it comes to armchair fighting game players. Most folks don't have a complete understanding of solid defenses. Pure luck is the usual excuse when a person doesn't realize the mistake he made. Other times, the person knows exactly what he did wrong but would rather attribute the loss to luck out of bitterness. One-on-one games involving an indirect form of fighting are naturally tense situations. Especially in video games, there's a clear winner and loser (one aspect that drew me to them). In some sports, people blame the judges, coaching, players, or luck. Here, folks blame luck, controls, and players. There are plenty of poor sports who think that just because they've played a game for 10 years, that they deserve the win more and refuse to take personal responsibility.

All tourney-caliber games nowadays minimally involve luck. If luck was a bigger factor or if there was one clear way to win, then the game would either be banned or that tactic would be banned. One way to detect if a game in general is luck-oriented is to look at high-level competitive results. For example, there's a recognizable stable of top competitors in poker but they often lose early as well. In competitive fighting games, that just about never happens to high-level players and the rough makeup of top tourney performers remains very consistent.

The only caveat here is that the setup must be perfect: online is a crapshoot due to lag and offline must have functional controls without any display lag. For ST—a game well known for short, quick matches—I've never lost in a tourney to anyone I've considered far inferior to me. I would easily bet money that I could win against hundreds of casual players (or one player hundreds of times) offline without ever losing. Even online, I won 120 ranked matches in a row when HD Remix first came out. The only luck involved there is when I feel pity enough to let someone win. And it's not just me. I'm confident any number of players around my level could do the same.

I'll note though that at the highest levels, the reason tier charts exist is because there are certain tactical decisions that a player has to make in a matchup with a given character. It's not always the case that one is correct and one is wrong: it could be that one choice has 30% level of success and the other has a 50% level of success. Given enough of those choices, the best player with one character can be lose to the best player of another character in the ratios that you're likely well aware of (6:4, 7:3, 8:2, etc.). Unfortunately, tier charts are also heavily misunderstood. They relate only to these top level players. Normally, one top player even has a slightly different matchup rating than another top player using the same character. Any lower level player matchups can widely deviate from the top level tiers and are almost always more dependent on player skill than on character limitations. For example, I can often win using non-serious characters against other players below a certain level.

I'm not sure what sort of study you'd be looking for. I'm a firm believer in Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, the experience time it takes to become a master at anything. I know of no exceptions to the dedication time I mentioned earlier. Every top player I know of, without exception, has admitted that he's practiced for thousands of hours and played 6+ hours a day at some point. If anything, I feel that based on this topic, you've been overly influenced by people who haven't put in the same work. It's a tough journey to approach the peak of competition since it's never clear whether you'll make it or not and it's not always easy to gauge your progress. Some also find more interesting matters in life to focus on. For every person who's kept at ST over the years, I know many who have dropped out or accepted stagnation.

As for statistics, it's somewhat surprising that there are 0 world-class female players in competitive fighting games. Some are good enough to win occasional matches but not consistently. There are some with hand/arm issues that haven't let it stop them from competing. One famous SBO winner played with a broken finger and was allowed to use a mechanical prong instead. The blind US player you're talking about used strong recognition sound effects to beat some Japanese Capcom fighting game gods in Mortal Kombat (a game the JP players obviously never played seriously before). I doubt he could win against the best but it's certainly impressive that he could win at all. Amongst all high-level players, I'm not aware of any who have serious physical or mental deficiencies.

I have no experience in competitive Virtual On and Bushido Blade—never heard of a scene existing for the latter game in fact—so I can't comment on those games. I've played both of them with friends but playing on that level doesn't reveal much.

[Paradigm]

do you know about any 1vs1 fighting game that is "sucker punch-proof"? That cannot be (competitively) played any wrong way, no match can be won by pure luck etc.

Is this a serious question? Probably every competitive fighting game ever. Super Turbo, 3rd Strike, Guilty Gear, Virtua Fighter, KoF series, SFIV to name just a few. You'll never see top players losing to beginners in these games.

Hagane's post sums it up.

[Ghegs]

There was a small, local gaming con I went to many years ago and it had a few tournaments. I took part in pretty much every one just for hell of it, even if I hadn't played the game in question before. One of the tourneys was for Guilty Gear Super Duper Mega Core ++ (I don't know which version it was) and I played against someone who was active in the fighting game scene. He brought his own stick, he clearly had a game plan and everything. He played Potemkin, I picked Ky Kiske because I knew he was the Ryu of the series.

I didn't know any special attacks, but I tried out the usual suspects and some of them worked. Mostly I just used the normal attacks after I figured out their range and used them accordingly. And somehow I managed to beat the other guy. Of course he wasn't a pro or anything, but it was still funny for me to beat someone who had probably practiced many hours and had read up on strategies and such. And I don't even play fighting games.

He was kind of sour afterwards.

[BIL]

My fighting career was brought to an abrupt halt back in the mid nineties. I spent a whole summer practising on the SNES port of Primal Rage, only for my baby sister to demolish me in 3 straight games. She was too young to even button mash (it was more "button gnawing";) and she had to ask me on numerous occasions which player she was.

Never again.

So he probably practiced against CPU, then underestimated his opponent, but sobering story all the same.

Sobering? That's fucking hilarious, he apparently wrote off the whole genre after losing a game of Primal Rage on the SNES! Baaaahahaha! I bet he later got turned off of shooters after beating DOJ's PS2 port in half an hour. :[

[Obiwanshinobi]

As I understand it, he was of age when people easily get traumatised by things older people consider petty. Besides, beating DOJ with (infinite) continues would certainly take less than a summer.

[BIL]

No, I'm pretty sure he was just completely oblivious and remains so. Probably about shooters as well. Actually, no, I'm sure his post at least somewhat tongue in cheek. It's not sobering. :/

[Ruldra]

There was a small, local gaming con I went to many years ago and it had a few tournaments. I took part in pretty much every one just for hell of it, even if I hadn't played the game in question before. One of the tourneys was for Guilty Gear Super Duper Mega Core ++ (I don't know which version it was) and I played against someone who was active in the fighting game scene. He brought his own stick, he clearly had a game plan and everything. He played Potemkin, I picked Ky Kiske because I knew he was the Ryu of the series.

I didn't know any special attacks, but I tried out the usual suspects and some of them worked. Mostly I just used the normal attacks after I figured out their range and used them accordingly. And somehow I managed to beat the other guy. Of course he wasn't a pro or anything, but it was still funny for me to beat someone who had probably practiced many hours and had read up on strategies and such. And I don't even play fighting games.

He was kind of sour afterwards.

I have a similar story.

I went to visit my grandma one day and near her house there was a bar with a KoF 2002 cab inside. I went there to check it out and there was one guy dominating the other players. He was pulling off combos and stringing them into specials like no tomorrow, doing stuff I had never seen before. He was really good.

My only experience with the game was playing on MAME against the CPU with a keyboard, so I was expecting to get my ass handed to me. But decided to play one match just for lolz.

Well, I won. He immediately challenged me again and lost again. And again and again. It was obvious to everyone around he was the better player, but my playstyle was so alien and so different to what he was used to, that he just couldn't win. And since I watched him play for a few matches, I knew in advance what he was going to do next and avoided most of his traps. He was visibly pissed off.

In the end, I won 7 times in a row before he finally figured out my tactics and beat me. I left with a huge grin on my face, while his friends looked at me wondering what the hell just happened.

[Skykid]

^ Hate to tell you this Ruldra, but he wasn't as good as you thought. I'd wager he knew a few basic moves and combos with his characters, but couldn't really play the game. 2K2 isn't as good as, but borrows most of the general mechanics balancing from '98, meaning someone who knows what they're doing would have trashed you on it, even at intermediate level. In fighting games other than KOF, I can tell when I'm being beaten by unpredictable noob thrashing, and it's the most annoying thing ever when you can't find a rhythm - but in KOF (98 and probably 97, respectively) I eat noobs for breakfast, even here in China where the general level is higher.

I've spent more time on KOF than any other series. I've never put as many dedicated hours into it as Ganelon has on ST and doubt I'm anywhere near 10,000 hrs; but for 15 years I've given it more time than any other FG. I'm not elite - I know when I'm tactically outclassed from round one - but I can hold my own in the intermediate tier, and win maybe 50% of matches in the upper (usually signified by the opponent random selecting his team.)
I've never snatched a match against an elite player, to my knowledge.

To narrow the digression a bit, do you know about any 1vs1 fighting game that is "sucker punch-proof"? That cannot be (competitively) played any wrong way, no match can be won by pure luck etc.

KOF '98. The most beautifully balanced of the series, every character equally devastating in the right hands. The 3 vs 3 match up makes it even less likely that a beginner will ever beat a seasoned player by pure luck. If they some how fluke a round, they still have 2 more characters to deal with. A billion Chinese have stuck by the game (and '97) since its release, letting all others fall by the wayside. There's still SFIV, Tekken 6, GG etc, but none get the same attention or floorspace. I can't find a Super Turbo for love nor money.

Awesome post

That was really interesting to read, felt like an insider interview with a top tier ST player!

Primal Rage

Lol.

A beginner may perhaps get a few wins against a good player in a fighting game. Against a pro/elite player? Forget it.

In the best games, an advanced player will struggle to get a few wins against an elite one. A beginner has no chance.

This, really.

[null1024]

KOF '98. The most beautifully balanced of the series, every character equally devastating in the right hands. The 3 vs 3 match up makes it even less likely that a beginner will ever beat a seasoned player by pure luck. If they some how fluke a round, they still have 2 more characters to deal with. A billion Chinese have stuck by the game (and '97) since its release, letting all others fall by the wayside. There's still SFIV, Tekken 6, GG etc, but none get the same attention or floorspace. I can't find a Super Turbo for love nor money.

KOF98 and 2002 are some of the best fighters, hands down.
It would be nice if more people around these parts were into it though, the KOF crowd at my university consists of about 10 people [and only 5 of those people are kind of decentish], and my "local" arcade [it's all the way in Miami, so I can't exactly go there regularly to fight] only recently got a 98UM cab on the floor...

I do really like how unlikely a new player is to beat someone even a bit above in KOF.


And oh my god I wish there was a competitive scene near here for Virtual On, it's the machine I spend the most amount of time with when I'm at the arcade, it feels so good to play. I play Viper II, and I only remember losing against people who aren't as good when I was on Bal's stage, because there's nearly no cover. Viper has the second lowest health in the game. Get hit 3-4 times, and I die.

it would be nice to find someone who could kick my ass though, I know I'm not that good at VOOM, and I'm dogshit at VOOT compared to someone actually decent


To back up the noobs don't win much against higher level players in these games, I know a guy who plays ST a bunch. I nearly never play ST. I decided to have a go at him.
I won 2 rounds, but not consecutively [so I didn't win any matches]. I didn't win a single round after that, and we played for hours. In a good fighting game, someone who's better may lose once or twice, but then they'll notice a pattern and consistently assfuck you.

[Zaarock]

And oh my god I wish there was a competitive scene near here for Virtual On, it's the machine I spend the most amount of time with when I'm at the arcade, it feels so good to play. I play Viper II, and I only remember losing against people who aren't as good when I was on Bal's stage, because there's nearly no cover. Viper has the second lowest health in the game. Get hit 3-4 times, and I die.

it would be nice to find someone who could kick my ass though, I know I'm not that good at VOOM, and I'm dogshit at VOOT compared to someone actually decent

AFAIK VOOT was played competitively more in japan than VOOM, from what I've heard voom has much worse character balance at high level compared to VOOT(which got a lot of updates, after all). Would love to have VO players nearby as well but I only know like three other finnish players and they play the games rarely now.

Netcode is great on VOOT though so it's still a blast fighting people online, the way the game handles lag just makes it a little slower but doesn't drop inputs so it's very playable. I think I'm one of the better european players now(esp. online) but the scene is so small that there is no chance to really be competitive outside japan. (also, fun fact: character use is generally balanced but for some reason 90% of all american online players play Temjin.. I'm not even exaggerating lol )

[Khan]

I remember watching a episode of GamesMaster when they bought the best Virtua fighter player in Japan to the UK to compete against the UK VF players yet this guy was whats known as an Iron man champion Dominick diamond set him against something stupid like 300 players? and he beat them all without breaking a sweat until they bought in the best the UK had to offer and the Japanese guy lost the first round only to come back and dominate the 2nd and 3rd rounds like a monster when Dominick asked him how he felt after facing 300 players his reply was "give me 300 more" what a beast

[Vexorg]

A beginner may perhaps get a few wins against a good player in a fighting game. Against a pro/elite player? Forget it.

In the best games, an advanced player will struggle to get a few wins against an elite one. A beginner has no chance.

This is quite true. A few years ago at PAX (I think 2010) one of the companies running a booth had brought in Justin Wong to challenge all comers at SF4 (vanilla PC version if I recall) and offering a free SSD (still fairly new at the time, and probably a $300 purchase for anyone who actually bought one) to anyone who could beat him in a 3-round match. My attempt was fairly disastrous, managing just one hit in two rounds. Most other people I watched didn't fare much better than I did. From what I heard, they ended up giving away only something like 4 or 5 of the SSD prizes the entire weekend.

[Paradigm]

I remember watching a episode of GamesMaster when they bought the best Virtua fighter player in Japan to the UK to compete against the UK VF players yet this guy was whats known as an Iron man champion Dominick diamond set him against something stupid like 300 players? and he beat them all without breaking a sweat until they bought in the best the UK had to offer and the Japanese guy lost the first round only to come back and dominate the 2nd and 3rd rounds like a monster when Dominick asked him how he felt after facing 300 players his reply was "give me 300 more" what a beast

Part 1
Part 2

GM was so good back in the day.

[Marble]

Games are a bunch of ones and zeros, usually bound in the form of a disc, cartridge or other inanimate object and thus lack the ability to discern how 'serious' they are. The act of gaming however is inherently competitive, which is why I hate the term 'competitive gaming.'

I'm sure I've said a few times on this forum that my favourite game ever is Third Strike. Over all the years I've played I've surely sunk well over 1000 hours into it. I really appreciate games with a huge possibility space and acknowledge the skill it takes to play them at a high level. Now I used to play in tournaments and have traveled across Australia for them and I don't regret it. But when you play in a tournament you're adding a different rule set to the game. It's like when you're playing through an arcade game and you decide you want to do it on one life, or without bombs etc. A tournament is the equivalent of that for genres like fighting games and FPS (multiplayer, of course). I mean, does Smash Bros Melee freeze up and automatically cause a player to lose a match if they attempt to do the Ice Climber infinite? No, but the tourneyfags will tell you otherwise. I certainly don't know of any fighting game that FORCES you to only play best of three games with one opponent then automatically matches the winner and loser up with different opponents for the next game. Maybe some of the opponents I'll come up against are boring, maybe some of them are incredibly fun to play and I just want to sit there and play them for hours! Maybe I don't want to sit around twiddling my fucking thumbs for half an hour while I'm waiting for my next match. I'd rather just pick and choose my opponents, only playing the ones that I feel like playing at that very point in time. Some people love tournament rule sets, but for me it feels like they take something that should be really fun and turn it into work.

Also, I think the idea of getting angry when you lose to someone who you don't think is good is really, really retarded. I've done it in the past, mostly when I was going through phases when I wasn't doing shit all in life except playing games all the time. When you're in that (bad) situation it's hard not to bring ego into it, your self-identity is laced in so tightly with your skill at games because that's all you have. Now that I have other things going on and don't have a lot of time for games, I'm more out of practice but I'm better at them simply because I don't care anymore. At the end of the day, whether or not you win or lose at a video game makes absolutely no difference to your quality of life. Are you eating tonight? Will you still have a roof over your head? Are you getting laid? For almost everyone on this planet, winning or losing at games will bear no outcome on any of these things. Plus even if you do lose, you can usually just have another crack at it anyway.

[R79]

I play Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown on my Xbox every night. Looks amazing with the costume packs all in HD. Strongly recommend it to anyone here. Hi-lvl Japanese arcade twitch gaming on a joystick. In that sense, not a million miles away from clocking that Pink Sweets hi-score. Only 3 buttons too!

VFDC is the forum to check if you wanna seriously compete and hook up with players

[Skykid]

Gamesmaster

▲ I remember that episode fondly, the Tatsujin! Best video game show ever (RIP Sir Patrick Moore.)

Incidentally, I went to a SFIV tourney at a local arcade last night and got instantly accosted to join a guy whose partner didn't show up. I tried to protest that A, I'm no good, and B, I was dead tired and running on empty. They were having none of it though. They've seen me around too regularly playing KOF and some SF (there's a young girl who's part of their group - someone's little sister I think - who harrasses me to play SFIV with her to the point where she's putting in the credits. Her Cody is too sick. By far the coolest gal gamer I've ever encountered.)

Won one against an upper tier and lost the next two matches against similar level players. Seems about right for my lowly SFIV skill level. I did please the crowd (far more than I expected) by taunting a cagey Bison/Balrog, which prompted the MC to exclaim "I love you!"

Was a throughly enjoyable evening, would do it again.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The act of gaming however is inherently competitive, which is why I hate the term 'competitive gaming.'

How come? I played The Adventures of Cookie & Cream with someone the other day and it was evidently cooperative. Moreover, the person I played with wasn't much of a gamer, therefore the extra challenge imposed on me was of didactic nature.
If we tried to better some other people's scores, it would be competitive, but it didn't even come into discussion.

[drauch]

I guess if you look at gaming's roots, then yes, it was inherently competitive. Kind of a flawed statement anymore, though.

[Marble]

I've never heard of that game before but from the sounds of things you and your friend were cooperatively competing against the game.

[Jeneki]

My fighting career was brought to an abrupt halt back in the mid nineties. I spent a whole summer practising on the SNES port of Primal Rage, only for my baby sister to demolish me in 3 straight games. She was too young to even button mash (it was more "button gnawing";) and she had to ask me on numerous occasions which player she was.

Those are awesome to witness.

Last year at an event in Madison, I was watching a parent and child play Baku Baku Animal (puzzle game kinda like Puyo Puyo). The kid was literally moving the joystick at random. A few moves from losing, by sheer luck a huge combo triggers and insta-frags the adult. It was definitely the highlight of my weekend.

[Vexorg]

My fighting career was brought to an abrupt halt back in the mid nineties. I spent a whole summer practising on the SNES port of Primal Rage, only for my baby sister to demolish me in 3 straight games. She was too young to even button mash (it was more "button gnawing";) and she had to ask me on numerous occasions which player she was.

Those are awesome to witness.

Last year at an event in Madison, I was watching a parent and child play Baku Baku Animal (puzzle game kinda like Puyo Puyo). The kid was literally moving the joystick at random. A few moves from losing, by sheer luck a huge combo triggers and insta-frags the adult. It was definitely the highlight of my weekend.

This article is fairly old (far older than the site it's on, I think I originally saw this on Lum the Mad back in the day) but relevant:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/slippery ... eback.html

[Hagane]

I can't find a Super Turbo for love nor money.

I recall legendary Blanka player Komoda going to Shanghai a couple of years ago to face some local competition. Don't know exactly where though.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Last year at an event in Madison, I was watching a parent and child play Baku Baku Animal (puzzle game kinda like Puyo Puyo). The kid was literally moving the joystick at random. A few moves from losing, by sheer luck a huge combo triggers and insta-frags the adult. It was definitely the highlight of my weekend.

One of the Saturn's finest! I find Arcade vs CPU bloody tough, but what a game.

I've never heard of that game before but from the sounds of things you and your friend were cooperatively competing against the game.

I wouldn't say so. What is a rather challenging game for one person, for two is more of a compatibility test. Finding someone you get along with is the game's true name.
Many games are easier in co-op, but this feature is what Kuri Kuri Mix is all about.