Last week I discovered GGPO. I'm amazed at what I've been missing not playing on this. There's some really top caliber players there, including Graham and Alex Wolfe, Alex Valle, and some very good Japanese players.
There's also been nightly tournaments at 9pm PST, which are great practice for Evo. I find one problem on GGPO is that I'm always tempted to play my "fun" characters instead of my tournament characters, but the tournaments are a great way to force myself to play my real characters.
It's also very nice because you can watch other players. I highly recommend it for everyone, whether a new player or an experienced veteran!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Leaning back with Boxer
Here's a little tip I learned from Graham Wolfe.
Boxer leans back really far when he's in the standing block position. His sprite is actually a few pixels further away than when he is crouching. So if you have your super charged, and are waiting for your opponent to throw a fireball, you can use this to your advantage to get a few extra frames.
What you do is sit in the crouching back position, as you normally would (to charge down and back). When you see your opponent throw a fireball, move the stick to the standing back position, and THEN do your super motion. You'll have a few extra frames to do the super before the fireball hits you, and a few extra frames is a big deal!
Boxer leans back really far when he's in the standing block position. His sprite is actually a few pixels further away than when he is crouching. So if you have your super charged, and are waiting for your opponent to throw a fireball, you can use this to your advantage to get a few extra frames.
What you do is sit in the crouching back position, as you normally would (to charge down and back). When you see your opponent throw a fireball, move the stick to the standing back position, and THEN do your super motion. You'll have a few extra frames to do the super before the fireball hits you, and a few extra frames is a big deal!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Pacific Northwest Summer Majors
Tomorrow is the pacific northwest majors! It will be a lot of fun! It looks like last winter's tournament attracted enough attention that we will have some Canadian players coming down.
Since the event is in Seattle, I'll be bringing my cabinet there. The thing is *very* heavy, but I have two friends coming to help move it. Sacha and I barely got it up the stairs when I first had it delivered over a year ago, but we were only two. Hopefully having three people will make a difference.
I'm still not sure who to play. It's been about a year since I started playing Dictator. He's by far my favorite character, but I still don't feel really "tournament worthy" with him. I still feel that when push comes to shove, I'm better off playing Claw or Boxer, my old staples. Case in point, at Evo I didn't play a single round of Dictator. Now if the tournament were on my cabinet, I might seriously consider playing him. I've found that I land my combos much more reliably on the cabinet. I'm pretty sure that there is a speed difference between Dreamcast and Arcade, and since most tournaments are on Dreamcast these days, but I only have the cabinet at home to practice, my timing is off. Combos matter much more with Dictator than they do with Boxer or Claw, so I really feel that my expected win percentage goes down a lot on Dreamcast.
I'm also interested in following the news of the ST:HDR beta on 360. I don't plan on getting the beta, but I'll be interested in seeing it at Zach's tournament tonight. From what I've read on SRK, it sounds like Ken is pretty ridiculous. That's funny, because Ken seemed really scary when I read about his list of changes :). Hopefully he will be toned down in the final build -- then again everything is changing so much that it's hard to find a point of reference. Who knows what "too good" means when everyone has been buffed up to the "too good" level anyways?
Since the event is in Seattle, I'll be bringing my cabinet there. The thing is *very* heavy, but I have two friends coming to help move it. Sacha and I barely got it up the stairs when I first had it delivered over a year ago, but we were only two. Hopefully having three people will make a difference.
I'm still not sure who to play. It's been about a year since I started playing Dictator. He's by far my favorite character, but I still don't feel really "tournament worthy" with him. I still feel that when push comes to shove, I'm better off playing Claw or Boxer, my old staples. Case in point, at Evo I didn't play a single round of Dictator. Now if the tournament were on my cabinet, I might seriously consider playing him. I've found that I land my combos much more reliably on the cabinet. I'm pretty sure that there is a speed difference between Dreamcast and Arcade, and since most tournaments are on Dreamcast these days, but I only have the cabinet at home to practice, my timing is off. Combos matter much more with Dictator than they do with Boxer or Claw, so I really feel that my expected win percentage goes down a lot on Dreamcast.
I'm also interested in following the news of the ST:HDR beta on 360. I don't plan on getting the beta, but I'll be interested in seeing it at Zach's tournament tonight. From what I've read on SRK, it sounds like Ken is pretty ridiculous. That's funny, because Ken seemed really scary when I read about his list of changes :). Hopefully he will be toned down in the final build -- then again everything is changing so much that it's hard to find a point of reference. Who knows what "too good" means when everyone has been buffed up to the "too good" level anyways?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Random Select Winter Showdown
I've been meaning to write up a post about the Random Select Winter Showdown (Pacific Northwest Regionals), after Pablo wrote a post about the experience. I wanted to wait until videos were up, so that I could look at them, and analyze how I could do better.
First of all, I want to congratulate Pablo and Alex for doing an amazing job. Pablo went undefeated through the winners bracket until the finals. Alex beat RayBladeX, an excellent Boxer, and previous top 8er at Evo, not just once, but twice -- in the winners bracket and in the losers bracket. In fact, I think I owe the tournament to Alex. I played Ray Boxer v Boxer in the 5 on 5 exhibition match afterwards, and he trounced me. Alex's Guile has improved dramatically in the last 6 months. Congratulations.
Here is my winners finals match with Pablo (I am playing Dictator)
Here is the grand finals, with Alex (I am playing Dictator/Chun Li)
Reviewing these matches, one thing I notice immediately about my play is that I'm missing a lot of combo opportunities. There are several points where Alex whiffs a flash kick, where I should be able to do standing short, low forward, scissor kick. Even just low forward into scissor kick would be simple and damaging. Yet I find myself not doing this basic combo properly -- a combo I can do in my sleep in casual matches.
One way I can improve then, is to simply get better at execution. It's easy to fall into the trap of only practicing high end, difficult combos. But failing bread and butter combos like the ones I mention above can cost the match. I think my problem is that since I "know" that I can do them already, I don't bother practicing. But then when it's tournament time, I miss the opportunities I am given.
When I played in Japan, I remmeber playing against Kurahashi and getting *one* chance like that a game, if I was lucky. High end play requires maximizing these chances every time, and I need to do better there.
First of all, I want to congratulate Pablo and Alex for doing an amazing job. Pablo went undefeated through the winners bracket until the finals. Alex beat RayBladeX, an excellent Boxer, and previous top 8er at Evo, not just once, but twice -- in the winners bracket and in the losers bracket. In fact, I think I owe the tournament to Alex. I played Ray Boxer v Boxer in the 5 on 5 exhibition match afterwards, and he trounced me. Alex's Guile has improved dramatically in the last 6 months. Congratulations.
Here is my winners finals match with Pablo (I am playing Dictator)
Here is the grand finals, with Alex (I am playing Dictator/Chun Li)
Reviewing these matches, one thing I notice immediately about my play is that I'm missing a lot of combo opportunities. There are several points where Alex whiffs a flash kick, where I should be able to do standing short, low forward, scissor kick. Even just low forward into scissor kick would be simple and damaging. Yet I find myself not doing this basic combo properly -- a combo I can do in my sleep in casual matches.
One way I can improve then, is to simply get better at execution. It's easy to fall into the trap of only practicing high end, difficult combos. But failing bread and butter combos like the ones I mention above can cost the match. I think my problem is that since I "know" that I can do them already, I don't bother practicing. But then when it's tournament time, I miss the opportunities I am given.
When I played in Japan, I remmeber playing against Kurahashi and getting *one* chance like that a game, if I was lucky. High end play requires maximizing these chances every time, and I need to do better there.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tournament website
I've been spending the last few weekends working on a new project, my Super Turbo Rankings Website. I've finally launched an alpha release. I haven't worked on any styling, right now it's just functionality over form.
I've also taken this opportunity to explore coding in ruby on rails. I could have done this in Perl, which is a language I've developed in professionally, but I thought I'd take this chance to try something new and learn a new language and framework. I was extremely impressed by Ruby, and by the Rails framework. I think it actually took me less time in RoR, even taking in the learning curve, than it would have taken me in Perl!
I want to describe the application a little bit. There are two main pages, the players page and the tournaments page. The tournaments page shows you a list of tournaments, and you can click on a tournament to view details about that tournament. Click on any player name you see to be taken to that player's information page. Right now I only support double elimination tournaments, and I plan on having support for single elimination, round robin, and just a random collection of matches.
On the players page, you can see a list of players ordered by handle. It also shows you the players' TrueSkill ranking. If you click on that player's profile, you can see more information about how their ranking came to be, including a history of all their matches, and how their ranking evolved over time. There's also a graph showing how their ranking has evolved over time.
Your ranking is defined by two numbers, your mu and your sigma. These two numbers define a probability curve. Your ranking is somewhere under that curve, with the most likely ranking being the mu value. The sigma is a representation of your uncertainty. If you have a small simga, your curve is tall and narrow (like the red curve below). If your sigma is high, you have a short and fat curve (like the greed curve below).
Your total level is mu - 3*(sigma). This is a conservative estimate of the actual level , meaning your actual level is probably much higher. This prevents people from winning one tournament, and then being at the top of the rankings forever. Such a player would have a high mu but a low sigma. We don't want that player to be more highly ranked than someone that does well consistently.
I plan to add a plot showing the distribution curve of their ranking.
I also show how a player's ranking evolves over time.
Here's a sample graph:
As expected, the red curve (mu), is always higher than the green curve (level). Also, as expected, as the player plays more games, the level approaches the mu more closely. This is because the player's sigma value goes down over time.
I think this should be a fun way to compare the skill of two players who have never played each other. It's also good to have a detailed record of tournaments. I don't think we have the full brackets for older tournaments (like old Evos), but we can enter the data we do have, and see how the numbers shake out. It is my hope that in the future, this will become the comprehensive site for ST tournament records.
I've also taken this opportunity to explore coding in ruby on rails. I could have done this in Perl, which is a language I've developed in professionally, but I thought I'd take this chance to try something new and learn a new language and framework. I was extremely impressed by Ruby, and by the Rails framework. I think it actually took me less time in RoR, even taking in the learning curve, than it would have taken me in Perl!
I want to describe the application a little bit. There are two main pages, the players page and the tournaments page. The tournaments page shows you a list of tournaments, and you can click on a tournament to view details about that tournament. Click on any player name you see to be taken to that player's information page. Right now I only support double elimination tournaments, and I plan on having support for single elimination, round robin, and just a random collection of matches.
On the players page, you can see a list of players ordered by handle. It also shows you the players' TrueSkill ranking. If you click on that player's profile, you can see more information about how their ranking came to be, including a history of all their matches, and how their ranking evolved over time. There's also a graph showing how their ranking has evolved over time.
Your ranking is defined by two numbers, your mu and your sigma. These two numbers define a probability curve. Your ranking is somewhere under that curve, with the most likely ranking being the mu value. The sigma is a representation of your uncertainty. If you have a small simga, your curve is tall and narrow (like the red curve below). If your sigma is high, you have a short and fat curve (like the greed curve below).
Your total level is mu - 3*(sigma). This is a conservative estimate of the actual level , meaning your actual level is probably much higher. This prevents people from winning one tournament, and then being at the top of the rankings forever. Such a player would have a high mu but a low sigma. We don't want that player to be more highly ranked than someone that does well consistently.
I plan to add a plot showing the distribution curve of their ranking.
I also show how a player's ranking evolves over time.
Here's a sample graph:
As expected, the red curve (mu), is always higher than the green curve (level). Also, as expected, as the player plays more games, the level approaches the mu more closely. This is because the player's sigma value goes down over time.
I think this should be a fun way to compare the skill of two players who have never played each other. It's also good to have a detailed record of tournaments. I don't think we have the full brackets for older tournaments (like old Evos), but we can enter the data we do have, and see how the numbers shake out. It is my hope that in the future, this will become the comprehensive site for ST tournament records.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Rebalanced mode and fake fireballs
I'd like to comment a bit on the decision to give ryu a fake fireball in ST rebalanced mode.
Before I start, I want to say that I disagree with the premise of how capcom/backbone is choosing to address the rebalancing. As they mentioned in the first blog post
I don't disagree with the idea that power levels need to change. What I do disagree with is keeping the top tier intact, and "buffing up" so that lower and mid tier characters are higher in power.
As I mentioned before, I think that the way to do it is to keep the "core" tier intact, and bring the power levels closer together by slightly reducing the power of the top tier characters, so that they are still very good, but missing the really broken stuff, and then buffing up the low tier slightly.
I think the core tier characters are:
Ryu
Ken
Guile
DeeJay
Ryu and Guile especially stand out to me as examples of excellent design. They are both extremely strong in the best hands, but no one would call them the best characters. They are the epitome of skill rewarding play. Players that win tournaments with ryu or guile are just plain good.
I think it's a much better design decision to keep these core characters they way they are, and bring the rest around them. You actually end up changing fewer characters this way: In both systems, you have to help the lowest tier. However, in the "keep the core" system(that I am a proponent of), you only have to bring the top tier down, which is four characters (Claw, Dhalsim, Boxer, and Sagat). On the other hand, in the "buff people up" system, you have to bring the entire middle tier up. Since the middle tier is much larger than the top tier, you touch more characters.
The other reason I think that the "buff up" system is wrong is highlighted in this quote from David Sirlin:
As I mentioned on srk.com, I don't think that the game at the top tier is nearly as fun as the game at the mid-tier!
The mid tier's fights are more exciting, more deep, and reward decision making better than the fights at the top tier. Changing the mid-tier is dangerous, because you risk losing those great mid-tier fights that I think really define the game.
So that said, I disagree that Ryu should be given any changes, because I think Ryu and his core compatriots are perfect as is.
That said, that is a disagreement with the premise of the change, which is the "buff up" system. I disagree with the "buff up" system, and I think the right call is the "keep the core" system, for the reasons above.
However, I'd still like to discuss the change in Ryu given the "buff up" system. So even though I disagree with the "buff up" system, I want to put aside that fact for now, and discuss what Ryu's change will do in the context of that system.
In this context, I think Ryu's fake fireball will make him stronger. This is hard to evaluate without context, because I don't know how other characters have been changed. Since I don't have that information, I have to think of how the normal ST characters would be affected. This would make Ryu more powerful at mid range, and especially more powerful in the corner. It would be even more difficult for characters like Honda, Chun Li, Dicatator, and Ken to get out of his corner traps.
There is one thing that I think is an absolute must. Ryu's fake fireball should not give him super meter. One doesn't have to look any further than SF3 to see why. SF3 is a game dominated by running away and charging meter. Players are rewarded by not interacting with their opponents, and instead doing safe moves repeatedly that charge up their meter. Once they have it, they approach their opponent.
Ryu already has one of the safest meter building moves in the game, with his jumping back hurricane kick. This is a move that at least forces Ryu to give up a resource, his position relative to the corner. But if the fake fireball built meter, Ryu would have a way to charge meter that would (presumably) be impossible to punish at mid range (if it was possible to punish at mid range, you might as well do a normal fireball, and the move would not be very useful). This would completely change Ryu's dynamic. Ryu players would have a huge incentive to do fake fireballs to charge meter, at which point they have one of the best supercombos in the game at their disposal. It would greatly sadden me to see one of the pinnacles of character design be overshadowed by a meter building strategy.
No meter for fake fireballs.
Before I start, I want to say that I disagree with the premise of how capcom/backbone is choosing to address the rebalancing. As they mentioned in the first blog post
My goal is to buff up the worst characters so they reach the middle (or upper middle at best). Next, buff the middle characters slightly, but not so much that they become top tier. And finally, leave the top tier characters intact.
I don't disagree with the idea that power levels need to change. What I do disagree with is keeping the top tier intact, and "buffing up" so that lower and mid tier characters are higher in power.
As I mentioned before, I think that the way to do it is to keep the "core" tier intact, and bring the power levels closer together by slightly reducing the power of the top tier characters, so that they are still very good, but missing the really broken stuff, and then buffing up the low tier slightly.
I think the core tier characters are:
Ryu
Ken
Guile
DeeJay
Ryu and Guile especially stand out to me as examples of excellent design. They are both extremely strong in the best hands, but no one would call them the best characters. They are the epitome of skill rewarding play. Players that win tournaments with ryu or guile are just plain good.
I think it's a much better design decision to keep these core characters they way they are, and bring the rest around them. You actually end up changing fewer characters this way: In both systems, you have to help the lowest tier. However, in the "keep the core" system(that I am a proponent of), you only have to bring the top tier down, which is four characters (Claw, Dhalsim, Boxer, and Sagat). On the other hand, in the "buff people up" system, you have to bring the entire middle tier up. Since the middle tier is much larger than the top tier, you touch more characters.
The other reason I think that the "buff up" system is wrong is highlighted in this quote from David Sirlin:
Also, as I said when I rebalanced Puzzle Fighter, we already know what the game felt like with the previous top tier characters, and it was fun, so it’s better to balance the game around that power level than a new, lower power level.
As I mentioned on srk.com, I don't think that the game at the top tier is nearly as fun as the game at the mid-tier!
I completely disagree with Toodle's position of "never nerf". Why? As a vega player, I can tell you that I've beaten very very good players with repeated wall dives. I don't think this is a fun part of the game. In fact, I've played the Japanese system of soft banning Vega and O Sagat, and you know what? The game was much more fun. And it was more fun because I didn't have to play or play against these idiotic, repeatable traps.
Chun li vs Guile is a fun, intense matchup. Every pixel of spacing matters. There's countless decisions to make. Do I block his jab sonic boom? Do I jump straight up over it? Should I try to trade with a low forward, or will he anticipate that with a backfist?
I haven't seen that kind of depth in most fights that involve O Sagat and Vega. Vega *can* be played in a powerful, complex, and dominating way, but the easiest way to just win is to do wall dives. Similarly with O Sagat's tiger shots.
I think it's high time to remove these kinds of moves. I want more fights like Chun li vs Guile, Zangief vs Hawk, Ryu vs Ken, and Dictator vs DeeJay. Those are fun, stimulating, and exciting fights. There's books to write on those fights.
I want to give Dhalsim, Claw, and O Sagat a chance to have those fights too. Getting rid of those extremely specific and abuseable moves is a great way to keep the inherent power and complexity of the character without destroying the entire game ecosystem they reside in.
The mid tier's fights are more exciting, more deep, and reward decision making better than the fights at the top tier. Changing the mid-tier is dangerous, because you risk losing those great mid-tier fights that I think really define the game.
So that said, I disagree that Ryu should be given any changes, because I think Ryu and his core compatriots are perfect as is.
That said, that is a disagreement with the premise of the change, which is the "buff up" system. I disagree with the "buff up" system, and I think the right call is the "keep the core" system, for the reasons above.
However, I'd still like to discuss the change in Ryu given the "buff up" system. So even though I disagree with the "buff up" system, I want to put aside that fact for now, and discuss what Ryu's change will do in the context of that system.
In this context, I think Ryu's fake fireball will make him stronger. This is hard to evaluate without context, because I don't know how other characters have been changed. Since I don't have that information, I have to think of how the normal ST characters would be affected. This would make Ryu more powerful at mid range, and especially more powerful in the corner. It would be even more difficult for characters like Honda, Chun Li, Dicatator, and Ken to get out of his corner traps.
There is one thing that I think is an absolute must. Ryu's fake fireball should not give him super meter. One doesn't have to look any further than SF3 to see why. SF3 is a game dominated by running away and charging meter. Players are rewarded by not interacting with their opponents, and instead doing safe moves repeatedly that charge up their meter. Once they have it, they approach their opponent.
Ryu already has one of the safest meter building moves in the game, with his jumping back hurricane kick. This is a move that at least forces Ryu to give up a resource, his position relative to the corner. But if the fake fireball built meter, Ryu would have a way to charge meter that would (presumably) be impossible to punish at mid range (if it was possible to punish at mid range, you might as well do a normal fireball, and the move would not be very useful). This would completely change Ryu's dynamic. Ryu players would have a huge incentive to do fake fireballs to charge meter, at which point they have one of the best supercombos in the game at their disposal. It would greatly sadden me to see one of the pinnacles of character design be overshadowed by a meter building strategy.
No meter for fake fireballs.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Option selecting Psycho Crusher/Scissor Kicks
I've been playing a little bit more of dictator at my weekly gatherings, and I've realized that sometimes I just don't have enough charge for a scissor kicks combo. I realized this when I crossed over a zangief player with jumping forward, and then did three standing shorts. Usually this combos into scissor kicks but sometimes the kicks weren't coming out.
This might be because of the variables charge times in super turbo, and because dictator's scissor kicks is the longest charge time move in the game. The speed at which I press the standing shorts is probably affecting my charge time. If I did a pyscho crusher instead, I would probably have gotten that out every time, but I was greedy and going for the longer charge time pyscho crusher.
Should I stop going for crossover scissor kick combos? No! I had the idea that maybe I could go for an option select.
The idea would be:
Jump with crossup forward
Keep holding lever back
Stand short x 3
Move lever towards opponent
Press roundhouse kick and fierce punch one right after the other
If you have a long enough charge for the scissor kick, the roundhouse kick input should give you a scissor kick. However, if you don't have a long enough charge, then the roundhouse kick should come out for a very short time (1 frame or so), and then get kara cancelled into the fierce pyscho crusher!
So you get to have your cake and eat it too. You can try for the scissor kicks, but if it doesn't come out.
This can also be useful in Dictator's other standard combo
Crossover forward
Stand short x 2
Low foward
Fierce Psycho Crusher
Replace the last "Fierce Psycho Crusher" with a roundhouse instantly followed by a fierce, and you should be able to try for the more damaging combo safely.
I've tried this on my machine, and it seems to work. However, to really prove that this works, perhaps some kind reader would try it out on an emulator? I really need to learn how to set up inputs on emulators. Proving this kind of stuff would be great.
This might be because of the variables charge times in super turbo, and because dictator's scissor kicks is the longest charge time move in the game. The speed at which I press the standing shorts is probably affecting my charge time. If I did a pyscho crusher instead, I would probably have gotten that out every time, but I was greedy and going for the longer charge time pyscho crusher.
Should I stop going for crossover scissor kick combos? No! I had the idea that maybe I could go for an option select.
The idea would be:
Jump with crossup forward
Keep holding lever back
Stand short x 3
Move lever towards opponent
Press roundhouse kick and fierce punch one right after the other
If you have a long enough charge for the scissor kick, the roundhouse kick input should give you a scissor kick. However, if you don't have a long enough charge, then the roundhouse kick should come out for a very short time (1 frame or so), and then get kara cancelled into the fierce pyscho crusher!
So you get to have your cake and eat it too. You can try for the scissor kicks, but if it doesn't come out.
This can also be useful in Dictator's other standard combo
Crossover forward
Stand short x 2
Low foward
Fierce Psycho Crusher
Replace the last "Fierce Psycho Crusher" with a roundhouse instantly followed by a fierce, and you should be able to try for the more damaging combo safely.
I've tried this on my machine, and it seems to work. However, to really prove that this works, perhaps some kind reader would try it out on an emulator? I really need to learn how to set up inputs on emulators. Proving this kind of stuff would be great.
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