DLC 5 tournament

[Meeplelard]

I definitely would not.  Traditionally, Versus is not considered the same as Street Fighter, and it shows.  They run off different concepts and such.  For example, in Street Fighter, the idea of these big massive air combos is unheard of; yeah, you can do basic things in air, but air attacks are mostly jumping in and leading to more ground based combos.

MvC2, you can have fights basically be almost entirely aerial based, and these massive aerial combos, and what not.

That, and MvC2 runs more off the team dynamic, with supports, and...well, its kind of like trying to make 6 simultaneous characters fight at once, except its pretending to be 1v1, hence all the mayhem.  Street Fighter is a straight up 1v1 match and nothing else.

Capcom vs. SNK (2) is a "Versus" game that strongly resembles Street Fighter more so than a Versus.  That was basically just "screw the team bullshit, you just choose x number of characters, and the fight in sequence, such that one replaces the next when they die" and  kept the general style of Street Fighter and KoF in tact.

So yeah, Versus Game =/= Street Fighter as far as I'm concerned.  I could see arguing, say, Darkstalkers or KoF as a Street Fighter replacement; while not identical, a lot of the same basic ideas work there, and its the same kind of fighter.  Heck, Marvel Super Heroes and X-men: Children of the Atom (Not that I expect us to see EITHER of those two) would also be more akin to Street Fighter.  Versus is its own new series entirely, just has a few of the Street Fighter characters in the mix.

[Yakumo]

I'd just like to point out that most of the DL are just not huge fighting game fans in general, so if you want to keep people's attention here stop worrying so much about shit like match length and start worrying about if the game is easy to pick up and play and if it's visually interesting.  MvC2 is widely known as a horribly unbalanced fighting game but for a group like us it's probably a pretty good pick, for instance, since you don't need to know everyone's entire movelist to be able to do something and it's pretty fast action.  I mean, if you have one hypothetical game that has matches lasting a minute and a half but it's two people turtling until one gets a good move in, or one that's three minutes a match but bodies are flying all over the place, which one are people going to watch?  I realize that's a bit of exaggeration but you really do need to take that into account, not just look at the match times and say "eh, too long".

[OblivionKnight]

As the weird cat-thing said, the big thing is FUN.  MvC2 is NOT balanced, as stated - but it is hilarious fun to watch, mock, and play, and easy to do so.  It's the same reason the music quiz is fun - half the people at DLCon 4 didn't even get a single point, but the quiz was fun and entertaining for everyone.  That's the most important thing.

That said, I'm sure you can sneak a serious business fighting game in if you'd like, but it should be the minority, not majority.

[Lady Door]

I'd just like to point out that most of the DL are just not huge fighting game fans in general, so if you want to keep people's attention here stop worrying so much about shit like match length and start worrying about if the game is easy to pick up and play and if it's visually interesting. 

[metroid composite]

I mean, if you have one hypothetical game that has matches lasting a minute and a half but it's two people turtling until one gets a good move in, or one that's three minutes a match but bodies are flying all over the place, which one are people going to watch?  I realize that's a bit of exaggeration but you really do need to take that into account, not just look at the match times and say "eh, too long".

Oh, absolutely.

And...realistically what I'm worried about isn't match length per-se, but length of the entire tournament.  For instance, we wouldn't do 4 hours of bowling.  Bowling a nice change of pace, but not everyone enjoys it, and most people would be just plain tired by the end of 4 hours.  Similarly, I don't think we should do 4 hours of competitive gaming when that's really not the DL's thing.

What this means is that yes: we can run a long game, we just have to budget for the length, and schedule fewer and/or shorter games for the remaining time.

[metroid composite]

On the other hand, not necessarily fighters.

Hmm...yeah, want to come back to this one.  Just thinking of a few games that have worked in a similar pass-the-controller format...

Zone of the Enders (Flashiest. Game. Ever.  Also arguably a fighter actually...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWNPNIk2eoM
(About 2:00)

Tetris Attack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj_7zumldj0
(About 2:00 per round)

Super Mario Bros 3 Versus (hey, it's worked for the Vancouver group >_>)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otxfx_ueQcc
(about 0:30 per round)

Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAb85XKt8NY
(About 1:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puO7LaHwxII
(About 1:10)

Hmm...all of these are reasonable time-wise.  How do people feel about them as choices?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Zone of the Enders bores me (ironically given your comments). The others all sound cool.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Match length is important in keeping an ambivalent audience interested. My enjoyment of watching fighting games is inversely proportional to the amount of time it takes.

[Talaysen]

I'd be all for some a non-fighter being added in.  Agreed with NEB on those choices.

[VySaika]

Throwing one of those in intsead of a fighter wouldn't be a bad call at all, IMO. I would want to keep it 2 fighters/1 non-fighter, but having that 1 non-fighter is a cool idea.

[Ranmilia]

Tetris Attack and Puzzle Fighter are pretty hard to get into if you haven't played them a fair amount before.  Regular old Tetris would be more accessible, though perhaps harder to obtain?  And I would've thought Mario Kart would be the nonfighter of choice.

Regardless, we can definitely see a big attitude split emerging here, which is what I was talking about.  I frankly didn't enjoy the DLC2 tournament much except as a novelty, because people were given no practice time with the mostly unfamiliar games, and even the familiar Smash was given a rule (Final Destination only) that was terrible for the players.  I don't want to see that happen again - as someone who is interested in the actual competition, I'd probably (and ironically) choose to sit out of a tournament that's planned for spectator enjoyment at the expense of fairness and player enjoyment, rather than enter and be frustrated by the experience again.  If most of the group isn't fans, maybe we should consider abandoning the idea instead of trying to water it down for both sides.

[Grefter]

It is a shame it is a slag to get handhelds on TVs, because multiplayer Tetris on DS with items is fucking crazy awesome and somehow a great spectator sport actually.  Had many a good times with that.

Have we had Soul Calibur 1 at a tournament yet?  You can buy it on X-Box Live and it is a fantastic choice and with plenty of people used to SC series it is fairly pick up and play.

[SageAcrin]

Zone of the Enders has hideous balance as a fighter and no one that cursorily knows it will be able to do worth a damn because they'll pick someone that will get their ass kicked between their shoulderblades.

I'm not kidding, it's that bad.

Tetris Attack has a larger internal skill gap then anything else you've mentioned here period, if either I or Hal come, or to a lesser degree if Xer plays(Xer isn't as into the game, IIRC but is into that style of game in general), or Jo'ou(Who is also good at it but I forget off the top of my head how good), there will be a large massacre. If you don't know Tetris Attack you die in an amusing minute to a good player. Tops. I love Tetris Attack but I don't know about it due to this.

Puzzle Fighter lacks this problem but to a degree character balance is huge and the game is also a bit of a crapshoot. Within that, see what Alex said, it's not easy to get into.

And I'm going to point out that not only do I agree with Alex-more people will be playing the games then there will be purely spectating, period, IIRC it went over 16 for DLC4 and required opt in slots? Yeah-but I would also like to point out something.

Blazblue was mostly included due to it's worth as a spectator game. Had people not been concerned about that, the game that's getting the most bitching right now wouldn't have been in.

This is food for thought. Just because a game is "short" or "pretty" or something equally shallow or what have you is a really bad reason to choose it, clearly, to judge by reactions to the disliked games in previous DLCs. Look at DLC2. SO3 sounded great as an idea, actual game people had played! It panned out as the most disliked part of the tournament due to terrible balance, IIRC. This logic road leads nowhere based on history. The only good reason to use a game, based on past history, that wasn't raw gameplay, has been a level playing field.

Go with games people actually have said they like, not other reasons. They pan out.

(Also. Didn't Battle Fantasia take longer then, like, everything but Blazblue? That was a huge hit.)

[Grefter]

Battle Fantasia had the bonus of no one really knew just wat to expect from it to be honest.

Also Puzzle Fighter you play as Ken or get the fuck out.  This isn't a Fox No Items Final Destination thing, this is just the hard facts about Puzzle Fighter, the character balance just isn't there.  Ken on Ken is pretty much the game at its best.

[metroid composite]

And I would've thought Mario Kart would be the nonfighter of choice.

Which one?  What mode?

I'd probably (and ironically) choose to sit out of a tournament that's planned for spectator enjoyment at the expense of fairness and player enjoyment

It does have to be some of both.  In general, players don't enjoy watching tournaments that come across as random or rigged.

Conversely, tournaments truely aimed at fairness tend to have a best-of-three matches or best-of-five matches (often with three or more stock) and double-elimination on top of that.  Extremely fair!  I've also seen it take an hour and a half to get through the final-three in a Brawl tournament.  Extremely long!  Double elimination is also not intuitive for most people.

Single elimination best-of-one-match two stock is not inherently unfair, just not always accurate at picking out the single best player.

If most of the group isn't fans, maybe we should consider abandoning the idea instead of trying to water it down for both sides.

Err...given that this topic got four pages of posts in like...two days, and that the fighting game tournament is often a notable section of post-Con writeups, and several people have expressed that they are first time at DLC and are looking forward to  a tournament and will be upset if it's not there...I don't think the tournament has decended into "nobody really likes this, let's just cancel it" territory.

[Meeplelard]

Battle Fantasia was also the first game played, so people were fresh and not getting impatient yet.  So its length was more forgivable in that regard.  It was also hilarious to watch and make fun of at the same time.  Had it been the 5th game, it wouldn't have been as much fun; people were gettnig tired etc.

[SageAcrin]

Actually, I think I will comment on everything suggested in this topic, just for the hell of it, while I'm here.

SF4: Worked out fairly well. Wouldn't hurt to have again.

Tekken 6: Mash friendly, fairly fast, fairly decent looking. Downside is that no one here has any fucking clue about 3D fighters, but that didn't keep Soul Cal from being fun.

Melty: Too combo intensive to prevent anger, based on BB reactions, and we have too good of a base at AC-this would end up unbalanced as hell, as most(not nearly all, but far too much) of AC carries over to AA.

TvsC: No one has any clue how to play this and it involves a guy putting a Servbot helmet on someone and punching him through zombies as one of the super options in the game. Pretty good chance this would pan out pretty well.

KoFXII: Not too bad, we have people that know KoF in general but as I understand it 12 is different enough to prevent too awful much of that from carrying over. Would work, though people might get frustrated, since it's closer to the technical end then not. Still, not hideously or anything, it's not Guilty Gear.

Blazblue: People bitching too much obviously means it's bad, even though it appears to be a minority. We have a skill gap anyways.

Smash: No 64, it is the sort of game that appeals far more to people that are stupidly into Smash then not. I like 64 mind you, played it a while, it is fun. No 64. No Brawl+, same thing, even assuming the hack is excellent-which I am not certain on, having heard many things about it that make me iffy on it at points, though sadly I cannot recall them.

Both are going to be rewarding the people already best at Smash. This is a terrible idea, as this is one of the few fighting game series we are into, but there's not a universal into it here. We don't want the gap between casual players and serious ones to become even worse. Smash is a game where the fact that we like it mitigates some of it's problems, but those problems don't need to be larger.

I highly suggest 2vs2 team tournaments of either Brawl or Melee. This levels the playing field hilariously, allows items to be more balanced(As the law of averages shows, 50-50 chances are more balanced in practice if you get more of them. "Object appearing closer to me then them" is a 50-50 chance. You have more people it can appear closer to and more raw life that it can appear closer in. Simple.) and in general is way funnier.

MvsC2: Worse then TvsC for this group. (...actually just worse then TvsC in general unless you're really into infinites and ridiculously long combos, from what I've watched up on it.)

Dissidia: What Meeple said. Bad game for a bunch of people to pick up and play. We also have the same kind of internal skill gap BB has.

For previous DLCs, the games that stood out most either way were VF and SO3(negative) and Fantasia(Positive). Battle Fantasia feels like a one-off but it seems like we can successfully rule out subgames ala, well, Zone of the Enders, based on SO3's reception. If you can think of a fighting game subgame to another game that you actually found good enough for a tournament(You being anyone here), I would like to hear it because I'm not able to think of one. VF reception rules out VF forever, we're not a VF crowd.

Some other things to note: SF2 generally was received decently...and has a newer upgrade in SF2HD, which has enough subtle changes to rub out "Good person who really knows the game instantly wins over anyone" and has enough better graphics to be more fun to watch. As an added benefit, it's one of the simpler fighting games.

Non-fighting games I'm really blanking on something simple enough. I mean KDC would be fucking awesome but sadly that *is* something where it is simply way, way too long. I dunno. Anything RPG-based isn't going to work out, likely, either. Dunno.

[metroid composite]

Zone of the Enders has hideous balance as a fighter and no one that cursorily knows it will be able to do worth a damn because they'll pick someone that will get their ass kicked between their shoulderblades.

Yes, I have played the game >_>.  This...isn't really a hard problem to solve, though.  Tell people "pick one of these three characters".

Puzzle Fighter lacks this problem but to a degree character balance is huge and the game is also a bit of a crapshoot. Within that, see what Alex said, it's not easy to get into.

The big issue with puzzle fighter is that people get to know the gem patterns of each of the caracters, and place detonators accordingly.  There's really no way to teach people this for the tournament (well...unless we mandate nothing but Dan-fights).

Blazblue was mostly included due to it's worth as a spectator game. Had people not been concerned about that, the game that's getting the most bitching right now wouldn't have been in.

To be fair, a lot of people liked Blazblue and have expressed as much in this topic, and are asking for the next version to return in DLC5 (I want to say the next Blazblue is...top five games campaigned for in this topic?)

Look at DLC2. SO3 sounded great as an idea, actual game people had played! It panned out as the most disliked part of the tournament due to terrible balance, IIRC.

To be fair, there's a lot of reasons people may have disliked it.  Because matches took twice as long as any other game (despite being 1-round only) combined with the fact that it was one of the games where we only had one copy IIRC.  Because it also wasn't that exciting to watch (in general people using the same two or three moves over and over until someone died).  And yeah, imbalance that nobody really knew about in advance meant a few people just got beat on for three minutes until they died as their character was just outmatched.

Go with games people actually have said they like, not other reasons. They pan out.

So...Blazblue, then?

[Grefter]

Oh yeah just chiming in again, if you are cutting it down to 3 games you do no want to use a puzzle game.  Otherwise the decision is already made.  Smash because you are a bunch of Skinner Box bred retards, MvC2 because honestly that seems the strongest choice we have so far (No one has issues with this, fits exactly with the format layed out has motherfucking GAMBIT in it) and some kind of Tetris clone.

Personally, would either drop Brawl or not do the puzzle game if we are going for a three game one though.  You can't really get away with a fighting game tournament with one real fucking fighting game.

The big issue with puzzle fighter is that people get to know the gem patterns of each of the caracters, and place detonators accordingly.  There's really no way to teach people this for the tournament (well...unless we mandate nothing but Dan-fights).

I like this idea, but think it shouldn't be Puzzle Fighter.  This is the way to bring SF4 back into the fore.

[Xeroma]

Errrrr what? Puzzle fighter played at low levels is HILARIOUS. Ask anyone I've played with in it, nobody gives a crap.

Also I have Puzzle Fighter HDRemix on my box which has changed block patterns to make things more balanced[ken's unchanged but most characters got some kind of boost], so that's not even a big deal. As an added bonus it looks prettier.

However I agree with Gref, and would also like to chime in that I'd prefer this to be a fighting game tournament overall >_>; But I will totally play puzzle fighter with anyone.

[metroid composite]

Oh yeah just chiming in again, if you are cutting it down to 3 games you do no want to use a puzzle game.  Otherwise the decision is already made.  Smash because you are a bunch of Skinner Box bred retards, MvC2 because honestly that seems the strongest choice we have so far (No one has issues with this, fits exactly with the format layed out has motherfucking GAMBIT in it) and some kind of Tetris clone.

Personally, would either drop Brawl or not do the puzzle game if we are going for a three game one though.  You can't really get away with a fighting game tournament with one real fucking fighting game.

Whether we're going to three games depends on the length of the matches.  By my calculations...

Three games: would have to average 2:15 per match (across all three games)
Four games: would have to average 1:33 per match (across all four games)

So far, the most positive games have been MvC2 and Melty Blood (with...Sage being the one dissenting voice on each game) which...definitely leans us more towards 2:15, and thus probably three games.  Granted, might not stop us from doing two ultra-short games (2v2 Smash + SMB3 Battle?)  Though...yeah, if we want MvC2+Melty+a puzzle game, then we would not have time for a fourth game.

[SageAcrin]

Yes, I have played the game >_>.  This...isn't really a hard problem to solve, though.  Tell people "pick one of these three characters".

The SO3 comparisons are starting to sound much more similar now, aren't they?

To boot, it lacks the easy grasp of SO3 where anyone that has played SO3 can easily pick it up, controls are pretty distinctive.

I just can't remember the last time anyone liked that part of DLC2's competition, outside of it's trainwreck factor. Trainwreck factor is fun to talk about later but is not really fun to watch or play.

To be fair, a lot of people liked Blazblue and have expressed as much in this topic, and are asking for the next version to return in DLC5 (I want to say the next Blazblue is...top five games campaigned for in this topic?)

And the only seriously discussed game that is actually getting slammed.

There are many options, but few that are being shouted down.

To be fair, there's a lot of reasons people may have disliked it.  Because matches took twice as long as any other game (despite being 1-round only) combined with the fact that it was one of the games where we only had one copy IIRC.  Because it also wasn't that exciting to watch (in general people using the same two or three moves over and over until someone died).  And yeah, imbalance that nobody really knew about in advance meant a few people just got beat on for three minutes until they died as their character was just outmatched.

Are there any guarantees that blindly played ZoE will actually be any better for any of this? Competent play does not equate to casual play.

With most games I would, in fairness, assume the opposite, but as someone that has actually played ZoE and messed around with it's competitive mode, I have to say that random button mashing feels like it would make the game take notably much longer, due to the fact that dodging/blocking are extremely effective if done at random, if memory serves and due to the fact that attacks tend to have specific effective ranges they need to be used at to get around this. I mean, yeah, it works if you assume the average skill level of the DL in fighting games is "Doesn't block and truly mashes randomly" but it isn't, honestly.

IIRC the good characters tend to suffer from overusing good moves while some weak moves languish and skillsets are on the limited side to boot. So...yeah, not good idea from my memories, if someone else wants to chime in as to why I'm wrong that's fine, but.

So...Blazblue, then?

Wow, a math major that can't understand the idea of averages. I'm stunned. You can't possibly have used that line to be anything but obtuse, given the original source material of why I said BB wasn't a good idea. <_< Strong dislike balances out strong like. Simple.

[Meeplelard]

I fail to see how TvC is better than MvC2 for us.  People have actually played the latter, and I doubt that's going to change much after TvC comes out; TvC will only be out for so long, and I can't see it suddenly passing a "classic" like MvC2 in playership.  Its also less intuitive cause the game uses less buttons in a fighting style aking to using a typical amount.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm merely pointing out that I don't see HOW TvC is better than MvC2 here.  Sure, TvC may win on hilarity, but frankly, that's about the only advantage it has.  As I said, MvC2 has far more recognizable faces, so people who haven't played the game could at least pick random favorites like Spider Man or Mega Man or whatever.  TvC?  Half the cast is unknown, and its smaller, so it cuts down the "pick based on novelty" factor considerably.

Edit: Oh, personally, I think we should do at least one 2D Fighter (MvC2 seems like a good candidate here), one 3D Fighter (Tekken 6 works), and one miscellaneous (whatever the hell that is.)

As Grefter said, we should have more than one real fighter, and doing at least one 2D and 3D gets us two.  Also, I'm thinking for varieties sake, why not use things never in the Tournament?  Not only are MvC2 and Tekken 6 games that were never used, they're from unused series to boot, so that really works the variety.  Whatever the 3rd game is...I dunno...

[SageAcrin]

MvsC2 is not a game where "People have played it" is a glowing recommendation given how skill MvsC2 pans out as combo length/knowing who the broken characters are, by and large, and graphically TvsC's superior.

Also, TvsC is more ridiculous and has better character balance. I'm not saying MvsC2 is a bad idea, I'm saying I can't see something it does that TvsC doesn't do as well. The amount of DLers that have played either is pretty low.

Also, I don't know about anyone else, but I for one dislike MvsC2 horribly in concept from what I've seen of it in play. Even on low end, it tends to be the sort of game where you pick it up and your average person can mash and do as well as someone trying to figure out how the game works, due to wonky attack mechanics, from what I've seen of some random low end play on Youtube.

The recognizability factor is somewhat balanced out by the fact that both have Capcom anyways, and not everyone will recognize every random Marvel character. It's pretty minor. (Never mind that it strikes me as minor to start with.)

I mean, if people want MvsC2 more just for it's infamous trainwreck value, I respect that(though it won't show up very well in casual play), it's not a bad choice, per se. Just saying TvsC sounds better.

[metroid composite]

Tekken 6: Mash friendly, fairly fast, fairly decent looking. Downside is that no one here has any fucking clue about 3D fighters, but that didn't keep Soul Cal from being fun.

Tekken 6 strikes me as a solid choice--several people have spoken up liking earlier Tekken games, and having variety (mix of 2D/3D fighters) is nice, and we've snubbed the series so far.

TvsC: No one has any clue how to play this and it involves a guy putting a Servbot helmet on someone and punching him through zombies as one of the super options in the game. Pretty good chance this would pan out pretty well.

MvsC2: Worse then TvsC for this group. (...actually just worse then TvsC in general unless you're really into infinites and ridiculously long combos, from what I've watched up on it.)

I dunno; lots of people seem to remember MvC2.  Hell, I played it when it was fairly new.  It's a pretty mainstream game.  It's remained popular among tournament circles because (and I quote) "MvC2 is an unintentionally good game because everything is broken."  We also have some Marvel fans here.

You seem to be claiming TvC is a better choice because nobody knows it and the gameplay is less ridiculous.  I see what you're saying, but I'm not convinced these are positives.

64... Brawl+....
Both are going to be rewarding the people already best at Smash.

Err...I don't really see it.  Most people who are really good at Smash are really good at one of Brawl or Melee.  Using a game that's not one of those two should level the playing field more, not less.  (Same with using a game with a more balanced cast).

Granted, I'm not inclined to worry about the game selection if we're doing 2v2 (which seems to be favoured at the moment), as we literally haven't done 2v2 before, and so it'll be a very different experience regardless of game.

I mean KDC would be fucking awesome but sadly that *is* something where it is simply way, way too long. I dunno.

Even if it's not going to work, you have me curious now: what's KDC?