I was having a discussion with my colleague on Muhammad Ali’s 70th birthday.
Now I love boxing. The idea of restricting yourself, limiting yourself to what part of the body you can strike, and what part of your body you may use to strike your opponent makes everything so unnatural, forced and difficult. To succeed, you really have to every aspect of it into a science. Herego, the common name for it; the sweet science.
But boxing, my colleague said. You mean, the most ancient and brutal and inane sport we have ever devised?
Punching people in the face? It’s so unnecessary.
Well, he is right in a way.
And then I read Edmunson’ piece and it made me think some more.
Quoted from the article:
“Sports are many things, and one of those things is an imitation of heroic culture. They mimic the martial world; they fabricate the condition of war. (Boxing doesn’t fabricate war; it is war, and, to my mind, not a sport. As Joyce Carol Oates says, you play football, baseball, and basketball, but no one “plays” boxing.)”
I have been a sports fan all my life. I have tried very hard to be good at some of them. But I realise that while some people have trouble keeping thymos in check, or they might take out their frustrations on others, my personality is that I tend to internalise agitation and frustration. Sometimes it drives to me go home and practice by myself for six hours. But in the long term, it’s self-destructive.
I know part of the reason I turned to fighting games is my fear of disappointment. More specifically, disappointment of my team mates. A missed shot instantly makes me think about percentages. It makes me think about sublimating myself to the team ethic. But sometimes, you just need to shoot the damn ball.
I could never summon the ego, or lack of conscience to do that.
Maybe that is I hate Kobe Bryant so much. Perhaps he represents the ego extreme, the gunner extraordinaire, the extreme (and deluded) self-belief that I can be never have.
What have I gained from fighting games these last few years? Have I grown or matured in anyway? Or have I regressed in any way?
I went to Bluehouse today for the first time in two weeks. I haven’t been going there like I used to because it hasn’t been updated to version 2012 yet. When I spoke to Edi a few weeks ago at CCH he told me the owner was probably not gonna spend the cash to update it, and I was really, really saddened by the news.
Because I realise that I’m not a talented player. I need to play nearly every day to maintain my level. And I probably need to up my daily playing time from 30-40 minutes a day to maybe something like four to six hours if I really want to see noticeable improvements in my game. When I stopping playing at Bluehouse, my Ryu execution went to shit immediately.
So I was thinking of finally playing online more to make up for the loss of arcade lunchtime.
But today when I went to Bluehouse, it was updated to AE 2012!! I was so happy. I was playing Aiden and I lost two rounds really quickly because I kept spamming fierce shoryu. I wanted to hit him with it to confirm that it was one hit only, like I couldn’t believe my eyes!
Yesss. Now I don’t to have to (horror!) actually play online. As I told Heavy, I finally get to press that medium kick every day with tears of joy flowing down my cheeks.
In the meantime I’ve been practicing a lot of Marvel.
Getting my Doom combos down, practicing hit confirming into full combos from all manner of heights and situations so I can get touch of death combos from any hit ala Clockwork. Actually learning advanced Spencer combos. Still have a long way to go…
I always find this part of Marvel really fun. The team building process, when you do a lot of theory fighter and start thinking of which assist would go with who, and what team order is best, optimal DHCs, things like that. Learning the characters and working on team synergy. When I’m starting out like that, it feels so fun, like there’s so much potential in my characters, so much stuff I can do! I have a blast in training mode just trying things out.
Then I play some matches against actual people and eat Wesker teleport + beam shenanigans repeatedly and get so salty and disgusted at the game all over again.
Having recently appeared on Cross Counter Live with Pyro we thought it would be a good time to catch up with him.
Hollywood X and Pyro!
We chat with him about the past year and the months and happenings in our scene since the last time we last talked to him. We also get the lowdown on Shadowloo Showdown 2012 and their international qualifiers. He also shares his thoughts on OHNX and OHNR, his recent Cross Counter appearance and how he feels towards UMVC3 and SFxTekken.
I’ve been hearing a lot about the arcade scene in Singapore in general and this Bugis arcade in particular, both from the Singaporean players that I’ve met and the Melbourne players that have visited Singapore over the last few years. I hear a lot about their high standard of play and abundance of cabinets, so I’ve been quite keen to check it out for quite a while now.
I haven’t been back for years now, so I figure that while I’m back for two weeks visiting family it would be a good opportunity to check the place out.
I get to Bugis around 4PM and try to find my way around. It’s the 21st of December, just a few days before Christmas and a Wednesday, so I wonder what the crowd will be like in the arcade.
Now I actually grew up in Malaysia, so I have no idea how to navigate Singapore’s geography. I can’t differentiate Wisma Atria from Takashimaya or from any other shopping mall on Orchard Road. But as my friend tells me, the Bugis train station feeds directly into the basement of Bugis Junction. And the arcade itself is in the basement or B1 floor of the mall. So how can I go wrong?
Apparently I still can.
I wander around the basement for nearly half an hour trying to find the damn arcade. I keep circling back to the store directory and checking the map out. The only thing that looks like an arcade on the list is something called Virtualand, and it’s in the corner of the map right there. How the hell do I get to it! Urrgh.
Apparently one of the few things that I am actually worse at than playing fighting games is simple navigation.
After walking past Cold Storage for the umpteenth time, I finally realize that I have to go outside the basement food court to find the arcade. I go out the door, and find myself in an outdoors corridor- a shopping arcade, much like a little street in between the feet of the buildings. I walk down the corridor and, finally! I spot an escalator leading downstairs with a large sign saying “Virtualand” on it.
I make my way down the escalator, and the first thought that comes to mind is; waitaminute, this place looks familiar…
I’ve been in this arcade before! Back when I was in the army, my buddy Daniel brought me to this very arcade to play some LAN games. (That must’ve been the first I ever played Left4Dead.) This must’ve been in late 2007 or 2008, so it was definitely before arcade SFIV came out and thus must be why this place never clicked in my memory.
So this is the SFIV hub that everyone has been talking about. I take a quick look around; the place looks the same as I remember, a large basement floor with multiple wings.
The major difference from the place that I remember is that one of those wings now features multiple SFIV: AE machines against the wall beneath a giant big screen with a direct feed from the cabs, and even more cabinets on the side.
I notice another wing with a similar Tekken setup, but I don’t look around too much further- I want to get some games in!
I make a beeline to the counter and ask about tokens. They tell me they use a card system, so I quickly whip out twenty bucks and get one made.
I quickly walk back over to the cabinets, feeling the dry thirst festering in my mouth from having not played in a while, pick a middle cab and sit down. I swipe my card and hammer at the start button. I don’t bother to check my credits- I figure I’ll just play until my card is depleted.
I feel a bit out of sync immediately. A Blanka jumps in on me and I do my dragon punch motion and hit the button- too late. I eat the jump in. This happens quite a few times, and it immediately feels like there’s a difference in timing between the Bugis cabs and the cabs I’m used to back home. Maybe it’s something mental, or just a byproduct of not having touched a stick in nearly two weeks. In any case, I quickly adjust after two or three games, and start hitting my links and anti-airs with no further problems. Continue reading →
It’s been a full year of running CCH (Chris’ Club House) for me now. I had a nice long walk through the park yesterday listening to one of my favourite albums- Niandra LaDes and Usually Just A T-Shirt, and having a long think about it.
I remember the day Chris came over to my house to talk about passing the responsibility over to me. I came down in my red marshmallow t-shirt and we had a serious talk about it. He chose me because a. I lived close to the Collingwood Library, b. I had Fridays off, and c. he felt that I had the passion to keep it going, and that he could trust me.
I remember thinking at that time that I had the utmost respect for Chris, that I was really sad to see him retire (he has since come back), that mostly I didn’t want to let Chris down, and that I can’t let this great community event that he founded fall by the wayside.
2011 was a year of growth for the community, and also for me personally. I learned a lot about being an organiser and participated way more in the organisational part of things than I did last year. Part of the reason why I volunteered to run Marvel at BAM was because every time at CCH when Ali would be running the tournament and have to put the brackets down because he had to go play a match, I would look at the thing and really want to pick it up and keep the ball going, but I couldn’t because I had no idea how to run brackets!
It’s not rocket science I know, but I’m the type of guy that won’t want to pick up something unless I know exactly what the hell I’m doing first. That’s why I’m also reluctant to play new games without first putting my training room time in too. Call me fussy or whatever.
But in any case now I feel that I can pick up the brackets whenever there is a lull, and I feel way more competent/actually useful now. I am bracket noob.
Now I don’t know why, but I’ve always tried to keep my CCH organisational stuff away from my blog. Not sure why. Maybe a business and pleasure don’t mix kind of thing?
So this is a first for me, talking about it here. So first I’ll try to recap my first year in charge, and then go into a new segment I’m trying out which is also borne from my tournament organisation experiences; What Grinds My Gears.
CCH 2011 Recap
So a year later, I would grade my overall performance a C+. For a variety of reasons.
One thing that I wanted to do right was to keep the scheduling as consistent as possible.
Come hell or high water, I always tried to keep CCH on the second and fourth Friday of the month. I always felt that having a consistent schedule is really necessary to build up a regular attendance. Especially this year with Melbourne’s crazy tournament schedule being all over the place, I wanted to keep CCH’s scheduling rock solid.
I always base it off Couchwarriors also being very consistently on the first weekend of the month (though this year they’ve have venue scheduling problems as well), and work off that. The other thing I try to do is post up the Ozhadou/Shadowloo thread on the same day- the Monday before CCH Friday, and have two months of advance dates posted on the threads, so people know the confirmed dates way in advance.
I’ve got my little calendar going and stuff, and trying to book next year’s dates…if only the library would be a little quicker in their response time.
So I think I’m kind of satisfied with my performance in that part of the job. But people still come up and ask me all the time if CCH is running! So if people would like things done differently, please let me know!
But I think I’ve done poorly in other areas. Especially in situations as Cartman would say; when I should really try to exert more of my authoritah.
But I believe CCH is and should be a community event. And it should be less of what one person or group wants, and more of what everybody wants. And when it comes to policy changes I will make it a point to talk to every CCH regular to get a general opinion before I make any changes.
This year thankfully opening up has not been a problem so far. The big problem for me was I started working full-time on Friday. Since I get off at 5:30, I really have to haul ass to get to the library before six to get the keys.
Even though generally if I make it to the train on time I get there 5:40ish, I know full well that any train delay or mishap (and they happen too damn often in Melbourne) can mean that I’m well and truly fucked.
Luckily, I’m blessed with two stalwart fail-safes: Burnout and Vitriol. Lord Vitriol (Andrew) doesn’t work on Fridays, so I can summon his reliable presence early to CCH if I sense any problems on my end early.
And Burnout, the Korean shampoo star, is always there like half an hour early. So many times I have run from the train station, my bag jumping all over my bag and panting like the out of shape asshole I am, all the way to the library- only to discover Burnout already calmly sitting under the tree doing something on his laptop and looking over serenely like an owl. Doh.
Should have just called Kevin.
But lockup has been a big problem. To the point where the library has complained several times about the condition the room has been left in.
I take full responsibility for that, because I have left early at times, and given the key to the other people that stayed late to lock up. Which was bad decision making on my part.
I am not blaming anybody, the key is my responsibility, and the name is booked under my name so I will make sure that from now on only members of the trusted Fellowship of the Key (Ali, Andrew, Syntax, Burnout) may be trusted to lock up CCH, and if the last remaining Key Holder may choose to leave at 1130 PM to catch the last train, then that’s when CCH will close shop.
To lose this venue over something so stupid would be a criminal waste, and would eternally dishonor the name of the Founder, Chris M.F. Dang.
The second thing is a little drama that happened recently.
I’m not going to talk about it too much, save to say that Andrew, myself, and ALI (you’re not going anywhere buddy) are going to sit down and discuss CCH policy for next year when I get back from Singapore. I’ve started talking to people and getting a general idea of people’s opinions and getting a lot of good ideas/suggestions to boot.
We’re going to work things through democratically and give the community the community event that they want.
One thing I will say; I personally have had problems before with how Ali does things. But that’s okay. I talk to him about it, and he talks to me about it if he has a problem with how I do things. Nobody’s perfect. God knows I’ve made so many mistakes myself. And communication is key to any collaboration.
But I always know that his and the Shadowloo guys’ hearts have always been in the right place. And you can question the way they do things. That’s all right. Have a rational discussion with them about it. But don’t question that their heart is in the wrong place, that they’re not doing it for the community.
That’s all I gotta say about it.
So about next year, come and talk to me if you have something to share or talk about.
It’s interesting how different people have different perspectives. For example I always talk to guys like Andrew and Spoony about CCH. And they know exactly who contributes what, bringing gear and setups and whatnot.
And I recently talked to Somniac, a top player. He generally comes late, and when I talked to him, he didn’t have a clear idea of who was bringing what. And that’s okay. He comes from a “top player” state of mind, and had other great ideas to contribute. It just made me realise I generally talk more about this kind of stuff with people with a more “community centred” state of mind. Again, sweeping, sweeping generalisations. But it’s interesting to see the different perspectives, and realize that I need to get more feedback from different kind of people.
What Grinds My Gears
This is a new segment I’m trying out. I have actually had this ready to go for quite some time now. But I was hesitant to post it because, well, my personal policy is to stay out of any drama, much less create it.
But as I’ve said before, part of the whole organizational experience I’ve had this year was to experience the bad side of things. The crappy side of things. The things Ali and Loki have to deal with long after all of us- the players, leave to go eat and have fun and talk shit.
This is not aimed at anyone specifically, but I just want to have a go at this and see if I make sense.
About what grinds my gears.
1. Not many sticks today hey mate?
Fighting game player rocks up to event in his car. Brings no gear of his own.
Looks around and says “Not many sticks/setups today hey mate?”
To which I have to say; bring your own fucking stick.
I understand that people come from work, come from social things or whatever, and don’t bring anything. That’s completely fine.
Just don’t have the big rusted brass balls to complain about it if you do.
2. The trash can is so far…so far….
How many times after CCH do I have to watch guys like Ali stoop over and throw away other people’s stinking trash? Like he was their mother or something?
Do you think Ali takes so much steroids and does so much gym time just so that he has the muscles to throw away your garbage??? That’s a pretty roided up Mom if you ask me.
Every time without fail after CCH I look outside to see pizza boxes, food wrappers and bottles on the bench outside underneath the tree. On the tables inside. Even in the fucking toilet.
Do you think the dingy Collingwood library has the dough to afford magical cleaning fairies that descend from the heavens to throw away your trash for you?
Dude, the trash can is literally two metres away. Clean up after yourself.
I sit there all the time and I’ve seen many, many people finish their food, and then go play. Leaving their trash there. Why can’t you take four steps to the right and simply dump your trash before you go on playing? Is the dude you’re FT5ing gonna pick up for you if he loses? Continue reading →
So I got home today and discovered that the patch is out.
So I played around a bit in training mode and here is what I found before I had to go to dinner.
Midscreen counter hit EX fireball with no FADC into Ultra 1 makes all the hits from the Ultra hit. Not sure if this was there before, but that does 408 damage.
Counter hit EX fireball into Ultra 2 does 516 damage.
With the +10 damage to HP DP and Solar Plexus Strike, the old classic f+HP, cHP, DP now does 318 damage, 460 stun.
Yes! I am so happy about this following thing.
My favourite combo in Super SFIV can now be done on Chun Li again. f+HP, cMP, cMP, cMK, tatsu. I used to love doing this to Chun Li in Super, and I’m really glad to see it back!
It does 322 damage, 470 stun.
Here comes a part I don’t understand. In AE I thought the cmk had less range, and so did a variety of top players. But when the hitbox data came out, a lot of people told me the range was exactly the same, but only the hurtbox changed. A lot of people on the SRK Ryu forums voiced as much.
So if the range didn’t change, and only the active frames got reduced, why did the f+HP, cMP, cMP, cMK tatsu combo not work in AE? Does it have something to do with the active frames? Hmm….
I played around with the air tatsu. Offensive air tatsu is back, and seems to be the same range with Super. Combos into Super midscreen, Ultra in the corner as per normal. The obvious downside is the short window you have to time it correctly. Do it too early or late and you get the hovercopter and eat big punish to face.
But that’s a great change. The offensive air tatsu and the +10 damage to fireballs meaning I don’t lose the fireball/Dhalsim stand fierce trade anymore really helps a lot in the Sim vs. Ryu matchup.
I screwed around with counterhit close stand roundhouse. I tried it on Chun and Ryu, and for the life of me I couldn’t connect sweep after the CH csHK. CH csHK cMP sweep worked on Chun though.
Interestingly enough, when I made the dummy crouch, CH csHK comboed into sweep really easily! Which might be useful since your counterhits generally catch people crouch teching anyway.
Anyway I gather that CH csHK followups will be highly character specific, and crouch/stand specific and will require much more testing from me.
HP DP. Feels good, can’t FADC or Super cancel or juggle in the corner after lk tatsu though.
clk clp MP/LP DP FADC works but clk clp clp LP DP FADC is a no go. cMP cHP MDP FADC seems to work on everybody but I don’t think cMP cHP LDP FADC is universal.
Again this means more character specific combos to really optimise your damage,and I definitely need some training room time to rework my muscle memory so I can do cLK cLP HP/MP DP depending on the situation automatically and naturally.
There was a rumour that the fireball speeds have changed. I cannot confirm this just with the naked eye, hopefully someone will have concrete evidence soon. If it’s true then I am very pleased with this change! (Assuming it’s a slower LP fireball and a faster HP fireball.)
I’ve been waiting for this essay by UltraDavid ever since he started mentioning it on stream.
To be totally honest; I know almost nothing about esports. I only play fighting games, and have little to no interest in other competitive games.
In short, I am ignorant.
So I find the whole esports discussion to be a bit mystifying but so, so interesting at the same time.
I watched Wednesday Nights Fights this week and saw AJ sit up there with Kelly. They were having a discussion about esports, and AJ was having the typical “the word esports is wack” discussion. She obviously was coming from some sort of role in esports, and I found it very interesting that she simply couldn’t understand why AJ would hate the word esports so much.
I was having this conversation with Spoony and Igor.
It’s like how the majority of my friends come up to me and say; “Why don’t you like… Iphones!“
It is a deep mystery to them that I do not feel the soul-consuming urge to purchase this phone. It’s an Iphone!
It’s esports!
Just because something is overwhelmingly popular doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for the individual. Or in this case, the community.
I find it interesting that people can’t wrap their heads around that fact. I guess they’re so used to it being the establishment or the norm that it seems ridiculous to them that people would choose otherwise.
So I found Kelly’s reaction to be quite fascinating. Because it’s the reaction from the other side that I seldom see- the reaction from the esports side, being the dumb, ignorant fighting game centric player that I am.
So while I’m too ignorant to be able to pick a side yet or have an useful opinion, when I find clear headed discussion about this issue, I read it immediately because I simply want to find out more.
And you probably can’t get a better primer about the whole situation than UltraDavid’s article:
P.S. I had a slow weekend, but I did enjoy a particular scoreline on the weekend that proved my rampant pessimism over the last two weeks to be completely unwarranted.
In the article, he discusses very interesting concepts to learning such as chunking and scaffolding and how you can apply that to your self-development in fighting games.
Here’s a healthy excerpt below, and I highly recommend to everyone to go to SRK, check the full article out, and perhaps leave a comment or thought.
“What Is Chunking?
Believe it or not, the human brain actually has a RAM limit. It can think about approximately seven things at once (give or take depending on the person.) However, what a “thing” is, is pretty amorphous, so the human brain saves mental RAM by clustering several objects together as one “thing.” This is called Chunking, and here is an example. Highlight and read the string of random numbers below. Then un-highlight and try to recall it.
13568453674
How did you do? Was it difficult?
Now do the same with this phone number.
1-(356)-845-3674
Easier? Here’s why. The random string of numbers gives your brain twelve things to remember, which is more than its RAM can hold. The phone number, on the other hand, only has four things to remember, in this case four groups of numbers, making it much easier to remember.
What does this all have to do with fighting games? Combos my friend. Combos. Even the most basic Marvel 3 air-combo (L, M, H, S, jump, M, M, H, S) breaks the brain’s RAM limit. However, to compensate we use chunking to group series of inputs together as individual items to remember. In psychology, Chunks in motor learning are defined as everything that takes place between pauses in successive action. The super jump cancel in this case is the pause, and so we think of LMHSjump and MMHS as two separate chunks. So how can we use this to our advantage?
Well first of all, never try to learn a combo that breaks the brain’s RAM limit all at once. This is failing proposition from the get go. Instead, identify where the pauses are in a combo string. Jump cancels, slow and easy links, wall and ground bounces, and supers or other cinematic actions like command hits/throws are all areas where you experience a pause in your inputs, and these are the areas the brain is most likely to develop chunks. Practice these areas individually, and your brain will develop muscle memory far quicker than if you were trying to learn them all at once.
Secondly, identify areas that aren’t chunks and treat them as such. When the brain attempts to recall an input that it doesn’t actually have in working memory, the result is panicked mashing because the brain doesn’t actually have a muscle memory queued up to recall. So no matter how perfect your DP execution is normally, you’ll still screw it up a few times when you integrate it into a combo.
You probably had an experience like this when you were first learning how to FADC. You would perform a move, input the FADC command, and then mash the next move out like crazy hoping that it hit, and this probably didn’t work too well. This is because an FADC isn’t a chunk, and you are treating it as if it were, i.e. you were treating the FADC itself and the move that came after it as two separate mental objects. There is no pause in inputs from the move that started the FADC, the FADC itself, and the move that follows the FADC, and so the whole command must be treated as one smooth movement in muscle memory. Similarly, canceling a special into a super is also one fluid movement, and should be treated as its own chunk. By trying to think of each move individually, you will simply reduce your chances of hitting both.”
Great stuff sir, looking forward to the next part.
I wanted to get there early to test out some UMVC3, but I got held up by something. I can’t remember. It was either laundry or Dark Souls. Anyway…
I get my ass over to Box Hill and walk into the Hive for the last time. I say hi to everyone, and watch people play a few games. Funnily enough, I originally thought I would be extremely excited to sit down and have a few games of UMVC3.
But when I actually got there, all I wanted to do was to get my hands on the game and have some long hours alone with it in training mode. The thought of sitting down and just playing without the training room time just didn’t appeal to me very much. Huh.
I did have a couple of conversations with some of the guys who have had extensive time with the game, like Loki who told me all about Nemesis and a few other characters.
Eventually I sat down to have a few games to warm up for the UMVC3 tournament, and boy was I salty.
Because you know, when you sit down with a new game, you expect to discover new shiny things your character can do, or some kind of new technology to apply.
You don’t expect to discover additional freaking nerfs.
See, when I heard about the TAC whiff glitch being taken out, I was like, fine. I’ll just do runners stance cancel relaunch with She-Hulk instead. When I heard the increased pushback of torpedo would make midscreen runners stance relaunch impossible I was pretty disappointed. But at least I can still use Spencer assist to get a relaunch, I told myself.
So I tested it out, and as you know, you can’t call assists in Marvel 3 when doing a special move.
So to use Spencer’s assist to bring him down again after OTG torpedo, you do runners stance, run (call Spencer assist), and do torpedo.
See, the runner’s stance and torpedo were considered special moves, so if you input the assist then, nothing would come out. You need to do it during the run itself.
So I tried it out, pressing Spencer assist during the run. And nothing came out.
At first I thought I was just fucking it up, but I realised that it just wasn’t coming out.
They must’ve changed the property of the run so that you can no longer call assist during it. WTF???
So now not only did I lose my two regular relaunch methods with She-Hulk, I can’t even use my assist to get a relaunch?
…
And I discovered even more joyous changes to She-Hulk during tournament. For example, doing the super in the corner makes you reverse direction and come at the opponent the other way during the second hit. You have to reverse your qcf S command to hit the opponent for the second hit, and that threw me off a few times in tournament. It felt like a totally unnecessary change to me.
I then realised that also means when you do the super with the opponent in the corner, you basically knock him OUT of the corner. WTF????????
So now I lose my post-super corner oki with She-Hulk too? (The majority of her resets and mix-ups work best with the opponent in the corner, post-Super/OTG torpedo.) Wowee….huzzah…. yay, Capcom.
I managed to test that the command grab raw tag trick still worked though. But bleah. I had a bad taste in my mouth from all the discovered nerfs and I knew then and there that this would be the last time I would ever play She-Hulk in tournament.
But Jenny still did pretty good for me. I got 4th or 5th in the UMVC3 tournament, I think. (I won 2 games in top 8, not sure what my actual final placing is.)
With the craptastic UMVC3 She-Hulk, and me being limited to my day 1 no relaunch BnB. Woo!
To be honest, there were a few factors contributing to my fraudulent placing. A lot of the players were trying the new characters in tournament, whereas I stuck to my old team. A few top players like Toxy, Shadowfox and SGMike didn’t show up. And I had a lot of luck on my side. Continue reading →
So a couple weeks ago at CCH I hear that HeavyWeapons wants to do a First to 5 with me in Marvel.
My immediate response is a look of disgust- why would anyone want to see that? A) Heavy doesn’t even play Marvel, and B) even though I play it, I’m horrible at the game. So at the time I thought it was just a joke.
But when Heavy showed up, it became apparent to me that it was actually gonna happen. So I figured what the hell, it might be fun.
I didn’t realize the crowd it would gather, and Heavy even had a mini-session of Marvel whispering with Toxy beforehand.
So it was time and I went to go sit down at the setup. Everyone was crowding around and watching. I tried not to be nervous and I did my best to block out the sound of the crowd.
(Also, be sure to check Kevin’s (Burnout) guest article on Shadowloo: It’s Melbourne Baby! I really enjoyed the piece, good shit Kev. I still remember the first time I saw you outside CCH, and it already feels like you’ve been in the scene for a long-ass time already. Kev’s a great example of how integrating new blood to the community can produce people who become really integral and super helpful/important parts of the community.)
I think I did a good job of blocking out the audience noise initially, but I quickly fell behind to 4-2.
When I got it to 4-3 after Heavy was on set point, I kind of keeled over in relief and I started hearing the crowd again.
Everyone was so hype and yelling and screaming. What the hell?
I didn’t really understand it- we were so fimble…dropping combos and doing stupid shit galore. I kept sliding into Sentinel low M like an idiot and I did not hit a single Taskmaster combo. At least I got one thing from the crowd- they kept yelling to just do combo into super when I kept dropping my combos- I eventually gave up trying to do the BnB and just went right into Super which helped a lot.
I felt that I played really badly and fimbled a lot but at least it seemed that everyone was entertained and had a good time. I eventually came back and won 5-4…you can in see my face in the video that I’m so disgusted with my play and at the same time you can clearly see this huge look of relief!
So it was pretty exciting and I had a good time. Even if the two of us are mega fimblers.
We even had a rematch the next week at SNL.
I felt more solid in my play- and I think the matches showed that. Of course, there was still a lot of hilarious fimbality- like my double screw up tiger knee grapple and just do Bionic Arm anyway and still hit hilarity. I remember looking away from the screen in disgust when I saw I fimbled the tiger knee grapple and I looked back and was so shocked to see that the Bionic arm actually hit! Oh god…
One interesting thing that I noted about the two sets was how my warmup affected my play in the sets.
With HW vs Muttons I, my only practice beforehand was to lose 26 straight games in a set to Kyle. Now playing against Kyle’s team (Trish, Dorm, Akuma) is not fun at all with my team.
He puts the trap on the floor, jumps up and places trap, calls Akuma assist, dashes back and throws fireballs. I just have to block, block, block, block with She-Hulk and try to get in without losing too much life, which is so hard.
He just keeps running to the corner, but what Kyle is really good at is recognizing the crucial range and timing when I would try to make my move, and he would suddenly interrupt his zoning to dive kick with Trish or Shield Skills with Taskmaster. And I invariably ate it every time.
So since this set with Kyle was primarily an extremely frustrating exercise in blocking Trish fireball, I never got to flex my offensive Marvel muscle memory, or you know- actually do a combo. So when I played HeavyWeapons, I basically fimbled everything.
But when HW vs Muttons II happened, I played a set with Fish’s friend (I think his name is Phil?). He used Wolverine, Dante, Haggar I think? Anyway he was bodying me at the start, but I adapted better and we were even trading games near the end. I was able to get into a rhythm and apply my hit confirms, resets, and offense. I felt that I learned something from the set and actually improved my game.
So when I played Heavy later, I felt a lot more confident and in command of my characters.
That’s when I noticed the different effects my warmup with different people and playstyles had on me. Continue reading →
I love how he approaches fighting games and intelligently breaks them down. He’s a thinking man’s player, and that’s how I want to develop my game and brain as well.
So I highly recommend anyone that is interested in UMVC3 to have a listen to this one. In this episode they go through all the changes for the old characters and the new characters, and their thoughts on the new game mechanics, tiers, new trends etc.
A lot of what Viscant talked about really hit home for me. Especially when he talked about She-Hulk and her changes (spoiler: overrated and overnerfed.)
I found the conversation mirroring a lot of discussions I’ve had with other people about UMVC3. Air X-factor and Dark Phoenix. Wolverine. And I discovered more delightful nuggets of information from the podcast such as Phoenix Wright’s dog assist alternate colours being Amaterasu’s colours and markings. So you can air-dash high with Ammie and call Phoenix’s assist low. Double Dog attack!
Sorry I’ve taken so long to put this up. I wanted to put up the entire BAM recap as one post, but since I was taking so long I thought I might just put out part 1 first.
Andrew (VITRIOL) and I head down from our room in the CQ around 7pm. A whole bunch of guys are already there. Bugs is setting up the stream, and Loki and his crew are moving stuff around.
We actually had quite a large number of people show up for setup this BAM, with even guys like Burnout and Somniac showing up later. We finish around 11, and Andrew does the responsible thing as he has to run AE tomorrow and hits the sack right away. Since I only have to run Marvel on Sunday, I figured I could get some practice games in Ricecooker’s room.
I do okay against Rice, Zero and Beefspecial- but when Beef whips out his Blanka, I immediately lose six straight games.
Kon (Ricecooker) says I tend to freeze up under rushdown/pressure and I would agree. I feel way more comfortable walking back and forth against Beef’s Dee Jay, just chilling and throwing fireballs.
I tried to do the stand block and reversal Ultra trick against Blanka’s wakeup EX up ball, but I only succeeded one out of three times. The timing is so strict. Since you have to stand block it, if you hold back just a little bit earlier you walk slightly back and the Ultra won’t catch the up ball.
I hate this matchup, and I’m happy about the Blanka EX up ball changes. I don’t mind getting knocked down on hit if I can also get to punish it consistently on block.
I sneak back to the room, and unlike most nights before a big tournament where I lie in bed thinking about the day ahead, this time I conk out almost immediately. Blackness.
Saturday
I head down for setup, and the whole CW staff is already there. I meet up with Spoony and talk a bit about tomorrow. I feel pretty relaxed and well-rested. My energy levels are high, and I’m feeling good about things.
Bugs and his stream crew
Pretty much a completely different feeling from Shadowloo Showdown where it was so hectic and tiring from the get go. Having so many people enter AE and ten million international guests will do that for you. I remember at Shadowloo Showdown there was this huge line early in the morning, but at BAM around the same time this morning people are still slowly trickling in. I help out a bit with registration but I leave after a bit- I don’t want to step on Javi’s toes, and he seems to have things well-covered.
BAM really benefitted from the monthly Couchwarriors staff meetings- we have ample staff for every position, and everyone knows their set roles and responsibilities. There’s Bata and Javi sitting at the registration desk, Bugs has pre-planned multiple shifts for his stream team, Loki is doing brackets and we have different teams of judges for every game. The main thing I like about our multiple teams of bracket staff is that the big boss, Loki, does not ever have to step on the floor and handle a bracket, freeing himself up for the more important and big picture stuff.
close enough?
Take Spoony and I for example. We had four judges ready to go for Marvel- Syntax, Bernard, Gab and Shadowfox (with Anthony as a backup) even though it turned out we didn’t even need that many people. We even had people coming in from other organizations to help run things, such as Dna and his Guf crew who became part of the CW meetings and eventually helped run AE brackets. So it was really cool to see all this collaboration.
People start coming in and registration is going pretty smoothly. I have a bit of spare time to walk around and talk to people. Even guys like Igor who I haven’t seen in ages. I even see guys from Bluehouse like that Bison who I call “That Bison Guy” in my arcade battle log. I discover that his actual tag is Eveazn and he and his Cody buddy even ask me to join teams. I didn’t really want to enter teams so I direct them to Beefspecial who was looking for a team earlier. It’s kinda cool to be able to finally put a tag to some of the faces.
My job for the day is to be the match organizer for the stream. I go back and forth between the bracket organizers for AE, in this case Andrew and Chris Ho from Galactic Circus, and line up good matches for the stream. I try to keep at least two matches lined up after the match currently playing and sit the players on the red couches directly behind the stream setup.
I had fun. Andrew and Chris were very helpful and by the end of the day we settled into a rhythm and pretty much they had matches lined up for me every time I walked over. I noticed that I quickly ended up not paying very much attention to what was going on the big screen- I just wanted every match to finish a swift 2-0!
The BAM magazines arrive, and I buy two copies of Double KO. It looks great; Dave did a sick job on designing the whole thing. The Ryu and Sagat covers, the layout, everything looked so good. Continue reading →
So that annoying button whenever I log into my blog saying “Upgrade your blog to a .com domain” has been bugging me for a couple of years now.
Being a cheap asian bastard, I’ve always thought; well nobody is paying for me for this. And the limited functions of the free wordpress interface serves me pretty well. So why pay money for something I don’t need?
But I finally decided to give it a try. It’s less than twenty bucks. And I’ve never had a domain to call my own before. What the hell.
I’ll still do things exactly the way I do them now- I just finally clicked the button.
So I lost the Ryu mirror once again in tournament. I think the last time I beat another Ryu was Nick back in BAM 2010. Ever since then, I’ve been on a losing streak against every Ryu I’ve played against. I think the most recent one was Syntax. Now I’ve also lost to Antman (Anthony).
At the time, I smiled, shook his hand and walked off. I didn’t feel that salty at the time, which Sol has told me probably means something is wrong with me. But now after the fact, I feel pretty disappointed. Primarily because Antman doesn’t really play SF4, and his main game is Marvel. But credit to Anthony, he played well and kept doing the things that I wasn’t punishing him for. (Jab Jab jump over and cross up Mk, or doing unsafe sweeps.) GGs man.
Maybe it’s the stream curse. So far, I’ve lost every single game I’ve played on stream.
The one good thing about losing on stream is that I can watch the match afterwards and review things.
Match starts at 47:30 (Double click to view)
In the first game I think I did pretty well. I pushed him back with my walking and anti-aired him more consistently.
The second game I either lost my concentration or stepped it down a gear, but he became the aggressor. The next two games I lost was because of a combination of basic mistakes I kept making.
1- I kept getting hit by EX fireballs, which hurts because I would walk forward and exchange block damage, focus grey life in order to push him back/close distance, and then get hit by a EX fireball which would reset all that momentum and positioning I’ve worked so hard for.
2- I never punished his sweeps. This seems to be a real big weakness of mine and one that I was personally kicking myself during the match. I think I was dividing my attention too much. Whereas I was being more predictable, Anthony had shown a propensity to do unexpected things such as random Tatsus, jump ins, sweeps and EX fireballs, and I was more concerned about blocking all the things he was doing then specifically trying to punish sweep. But I should have been doing it.
3- He was doing a lot of basic clp clp blockstrings followed by crossup mk. All those things are autocorrect dp-able or I can do jump back fierce- anything is better than blocking it and eating more mixup. Maybe blocking it once or twice is okay but not over and over.
4- I should have mixed up my blockstrings/tech throws. I kept walking forward and getting hit by him mashing crouch jab. I should have noticed that “Marvel habit” and just done a tight tick throw instead of walk forward delayed counterhits/throws. I’m pretty sure tight or immediate tick throws would’ve worked as jabs do not tech anything. Urgh.
5- I should have baited his uppercut more. He had shown that he would uppercut in a lot of situations and I could have gotten big damage off those. And I think I did not uppercut enough myself and gave him too much respect.
A lot of simple basic errors that I kept making allowed Anthony to come back and beat me. Again while I’m disappointed in myself, it was good being able to watch myself making those mistakes.
Also, I noticed myself making more execution errors as the game went on and maybe as I lost my composure. In the earlier rounds I was hitting my stuff, and hitting even the difficult or high level stuff I was going for. In the last game not only did I miss a very crucial cmp chp tatsu combo that I should hit in my sleep…I also got a super instead of a DP which basically blew all my meter and almost any chance of me coming back.
Things didn’t go much better for me after that- I lost to Ali and went 0-2 again.
Ali really has my number these days. I think the Akuma matchup is really one I need to work on as well. I feel so afraid of his sweep I’m scared to play footsies. Then I throw fireballs a lot which I find to be not very good against Akuma’s red fireballs and EX dive kicks. I have no choice but to try to block his vortex because of all his un-dpable dive kicks and whiff palm land behind shenanigans whereas he can just DP my crossups or teleport away. So I’m not sure what I should be doing in that match.
Somehow I did better in Marvel. I lost 26 straight games to Gab in casuals and my first match was against him on stream. Joy!
Fuck Wesker.
I was able to use some of my new tech that I’ve been working on, but overall I got bodied by the same shit. Wolverine and Wesker.
I also played Fish on the stream and everyone was going crazy during my match. Yelling a lot, chanting “muttonfiend”…I found it all extremely distracting and just wished everyone would shut the hell up!
I also found it weird that people were getting so hype when I was clearly playing so bad. Maybe it’s the underdog factor? I don’t know.
Anyway I played like shit and hit two lucky bionic arms and killed Fish the second game, even managing to fimble the OTG grapple after the first one which would’ve made the dramatic last Bionic Arm completely unnecessary. And everybody went nuts. Again I don’t understand it. It was just two scrubby bionic arms. AND I lost the next game and the set.
Oh well. At least I had some kind of fun.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I actually really enjoy Shadowfox and Anthony’s Marvel commentary. Good natured humour and hype. Good shit.
This is my second time at Shadowloo Night Live, and I have to say I’ve been enjoying the new location. Brunswick is more central and it’s only a twenty, twenty five minute tram or train ride from the city. Which is pretty good for me.
Quite importantly, it’s right next to the train/tram station. For people like me who don’t drive and often lug setups to events, that is quite a good thing!
Everyone seemed to have fun, and having a fortnightly stream will also be really good for the Melbourne scene. I like the fact that the event is in a actual suburb and we can go out for drinks and food and have a good time instead of being stuck with Encore pizza at CCH and Domino’s/Subway at Deakin all the time!
So good shit to the Shadowloo guys for finding this venue, and Bugs for lugging his stream setup there. You guys rock.
