Evolution West 2006 Report
Evolution West was overall a great tournament. We had a huge ballroom that might have made us "the first fighting game tournament ever with too much space." Also, our new format of doing one game at a time worked exactly as planned. If was much easier to get the players in the right place at the right time with this method. Also, it was great that we had so many casual play stations in the same room as the tournament. This allowed players to practice for for their matches ahead of time.
As for my personal performance, I wish I had done better. I got top 8 in DOA4 (qualified), but hardly anyone even entered. I hope about 100 DOA players magically show up at our Las Vegas finals, because the total lack of support from the DOA community we've seen so far means we won't be able to feature the game next year. Too bad, as I think it's a pretty fun game.
In Guilty Gear, my team got 3 place, qualifying for a spot in the final brackets at Las Vegas, but this was mainly due to my teammate Ruin's performance. (XenoTiger also did well). I wanted to play first in our rotation, but Ruin was certain that he should play first, so he did. His plan was to single-handedly beat the entire field, and he practically did. His Eddie ripped through victim after victim, including top players like Ken I (Potemkin), Justus (Zappa), and Deuce (Faust). I played Potemkin and didn't accomplish much, unfortunately, except 28 wins in casual play, lol.
Going into this tournament, I thought Eddie was top tier, despite what everyone else says. I'm more sure than ever now. The ability to lock down an enemy while controlling two characters at once (Edddie) is just too good, even with all the nerfs in GGXX Slash.
Also note that before the tournament I ranked Slayer as top tier. Paul Kugler (slayer) was on the 2nd place team in the official Evolution West tournament and he also *won* the unofficial singles tournament. Slayer just flat-out does too much damage. Aba was my other pick for top tier, and Combofiend's Aba got 2nd in the singles tournament. I know that this isn't enough data to conclude tiers, but my predictions are sure looking good so far.
I said Ky was 2nd tier (despite everyone in the world saying he's top tier) in Slash, and after seeing Heidern's Ky (wow!), I finally get it. I'll finally put Ky in the tier 1 list. Sol still seems tier 2, but Said (aka ID) puts him at the bottom of tier 1. Semantics, really.
SF2 AE was pretty disappointing for me. I'm not happy with getting 9th, as I really wanted at least top 8. I ended up losing to the 2nd and 3rd place finishers: Alex Wolfe and Alex Valle. Even though I planned to play mostly ST Honda and ST Bison, I ended up playing HF Ryu almost the entire tourament as a counter to other people's Ryu's. It worked in the early rounds, and then I faced Alex Wolfe's Dhalsim (the only non-Ryu I'd face all day). I picked HF Ryu and Alex kind of laughed. I started the round with 8(!) consecutive helicopter kicks, demonstrating that the move is too good. I gave Alex Wolfe the opportunity to throw away the game here, but he cleverly did nothing and ducked almost all of them. Anyway, I beat him decisively in the first game. He stuck with Dhalsim and he won game 2. I really should have stuck with Ryu, but I switched to ST Honda and lost. Most of the game, I couldn't get in, and I finally got one ochio throw in the corner (should lead to 100% damage), but I did stand jab too slow as he got up (Dhalsim gets up slightly faster).
Against Valle's ST Ryu, I played HF Ryu and won the first game. He then switched to CE Ryu and won the next two. I think HF Ryu is clearly superior to HF Ryu, but whatever. Valle used Valle skills and won.
Here is what I wanted to say before the tournament about character rankings:
* HF Ryu's helicopter kick is one of the best, if not the best, moves in the game.
* CE Guile might be the best character in the game. WW Guile is almost as good, but he only has one sonic boom speed and can't do reversal attacks.
* HF Zangief is "secretly" good, but nearly no one has the skill to play him. Ironically, Alex Wolfe does, but he plays Dhalsim as his main so no one even realizes the Zangief threat.
* Chamption Bison is the most overrated character in the game. He isn't even as good as ST Bison. CE Bison has faster scissor kick startup and can combo after the scissor kick, leading to a dizzy and redizzy. He also has weird properties on his torpedo that make hit randomly hit as a crossup. But ST Bison has a super (CE has no reversal attacks AT ALL). ST Bison has better crossup attacks that lead to an easy dizzy combo. ST Bison's stand short allows him to tick into throw (usually untechable, too, unless the enemy is an ST character). ST Bison had a high priority jump strong. CE Bison is a one trick pony who can't get out of traps and has no reversal. There's no need for an "I win more" button, when what you really need is a little more defense.
*ST Vega would be good, but his input recognition on the off-the-wall attacks are broken. Same goes for HF Blanka.
*ST Honda is pretty good, but he still can't beat Guile or Ryu, really.
*HF Sagat is pretty good, and straight up better than CE Sagat.
After the tournament, I still believe pretty much all of that except the CE Bison part. Even though CE Bisons lost more than they won at Evo West, I finally saw the power of "scissor kick lands = you die." It is admittedly scary. Also, a perfectly executed CE Bison trap (scissors, low strong, stand forward, repeat) is *very* hard for an enemy bison or dhalsim to get out of. Watson demonstrated this on stage in a tournament match against Dhalsim.
It's interesting that the top 2 finishers in SF2 AE (Graham Wolfe and Alex Wolfe) both played ST characters (ST Balrog and ST Dhalsim).
Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out for the event. I hope to see even more people at Evo East, and I look forward to facing the competition there.
--Sirlin
July 6th, 2006 at 11:14 am
“I think HF Ryu is clearly superior to HF Ryu…”
I’m assuming you meant HF is superior to CE? Anyway, good hear some reports of the event.
What is it exactly about HF ‘gief that is so good? I know his no-miss animation and extra range are great bonuses. And even o.gief proved that you don’t need glove of love to get in on opponents. The only other things I can think of are his lack of hops, possible priority seeing as he’s an older character, and his low lariat being useful as footsie bait. Am I missing anything?
July 6th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
You don’t mention anyone playing Ken, which I find interesting.
This article is ultra informative to me, as I am someone who has been playing fighting games ever since I was little and am still struggling to break free of scrubdom. In recent years, especially after reading *all* your articles on playing to win, game balance, and yomi, I have begun to break away from my mental cage. I am now able to more effectively range my opponents, whether human or computer, I have started to recognize traps more effectively and implement my own more easily. I have started to play “experimental” games with my favorite characters in order to expose their strengths and weaknesses. In short, I am doing all the things I never did as a player before, things which caused me to lose and wonder why.
In playing a more analytical game, I have begun to notice interesting things about games, for instance, in Mortal Kombat 3, the computer plays defensively to a fault. The computer relys totally on range and split second timing to defeat you (which it always has, but not to such an extreme degree as it does on MK3) in fact, players can simply walk back and forth in concert with the computer opponent, and the computer will never attack. Not too long ago, I was blind to situations such as this, and it has only been recently that I have started to open my eyes and view the entire game in a way that makes sense.
I practice almost daily with all the Street Fighter games, both with the computer and anyone willing to go head to head with me. Unfortunately, even though I am still a scrub, I masterfully destroy anyone I play, not because I’m that good, (as I used to think) but because my human opponents simply aren’t.
Thank you Sirlin on helping me to open my eyes, and I’m looking forward to any new articles you may be penning on how to free oneself from the bonds of scrubdom.
July 7th, 2006 at 6:07 am
“You don’t mention anyone playing Ken, which I find interesting.”
Do you mean, there was no one playing Ken, or that Sirlin forgot to mention that there were Kens? ;) I’m assuming the former. Which I also find interesting, as there are a couple decent versions of Ken HSF2.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:12 am
So you do like DOA, eh?
Dunno if you’ve heard about this, but one of the rifts in the community that seems to be lowering turnouts (along with online vs. offline) is 4 vs. 3.1. Many of the most respected players are now saying 4 is a garbage scrub-friendly game and 3.1 is far superior.
Of course, many Tekken players are currently saying similar things about DR vs. Tag, and I am highly suspicious of that argument; they think that since newer players sometimes beat big names, DR is more “random”, but they fail to realize that as the quality of play in any game increases the difference between the best and the average decreases. The greater character balance in DR is also a factor here.
The reason I’m mentioning this is that a sizable chunk of the DOA population is making the same argument against 4. This also strikes me as BS, but some of their complaints do seem to be legitimate. For instance, in 3.1 everybody had moves with frame advantage on block, but in 4 that’s become extremely rare.
Have you ever played 3.1, and if so do you have an opinion on this? And also, one of the admins at DOACentral has been going around saying that Evo would’ve gotten a better turnout if they had used 3.1 instead…I thought this was ridiculous, but after what happened at West I wonder.
July 8th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Good Job Homey! (Potemkin?) Is hurricane kick still that good? (serious question)
At Tekken…
T4 was a step in the right direction. Despite all the ‘guff’ it got, that game is incredible. T5 got rid of some of the funest stuff I’ve ever utilized in a fighting game and made a ton of way too similar characters. I can see DR as being random because everyone is so similar. Lots of games have balance problems, but I’d rather have the variety of Tag and T4 than the quantity in T5. T4 was a big overhaul, but people hated it despite it being exactly what it needed. Hopefully the next one will be a tag game and hopefully they’ll tone down (read truncate) everyone’s move lists like they have with SC.
At DOA…
Haven’t played them too much, but I can definitely see how 3.1 could be more fun. Seems like they rushed and worried about ‘extra’ content instead of actually developing ‘real’ content. (that thing sirlin mentioned about juggle characters avoiding the stun system seems pretty broken from my experiences, but these games are way too new for me to judge so harshly)
*and if you have some time, Sirlin*
Who did you use in DOA? What worked/didn’t with him/her or overall? What surprised you, especially strat wise that others were doing?
July 8th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Looks like GGXX Slash mixed the tiers a bit.
…wait, no mention of Johnny. What happened to him?
July 9th, 2006 at 3:35 am
I’m an old-school Tekken player, and I must say, 4 was a major overhaul. I prefer Tag over everything else though. It seemed as though the moves were more intuitive and combos were a lot deeper, plus player combinations added a huge dimension to the game because if you play Paul, who is a highly dominant character, and say, Baek, who is great for flurrying the screen with kicks and comboes, I can pick a combo such as Lei and Nina to help fend off those particular play styles.
The gameplay was also faster than any other Tekken I’ve played, (I must admit to not playing anything over 4 at this time, I just haven’t had the means…) and characters hadn’t been subjected to the “move cutbacks” they seemed to have suffered in 4.
Don’t get me wrong, 4 is nice, having interactive backgrounds, and corners with which to trap your hapless opponent, and the gameplay feels much “punchier” apparently trying to mimic the hard-hitting feel of the DOA series. But with that comes the trade off of the control being much meatier than before, making combos and special moves feel a bit clunkier and not as smooth in operation.
Honestly, I have never thought of Tekken as being quite as balanced a game as say, the SF series or Virtua Fighter. But for me, that never detracted from the fun. Unfortunately, no one I know ever wants to play against me on Tekken, so I seldom have any chances to really practice.
July 9th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
I’m curious about your match with Ryu vs Dhalsim. While I completely agree that HF Ryu’s hurricane kick is a great move, I don’t think it’s that great. As long as Ryu is not right on top of you, you can simply jump up or up-back with Dhalsim and use HP to stuff the hurricane kick. This works 100% against Ken, and I think it’s pretty much the same against Ryu, since you’re hitting him from above. If he’s on top of you, then yeah, doing nothing is your safest bet.
When playing Dhalsim against a decent shoto, I’ve noticed that the shoto’s will often try to abuse the hurricane kick. If you watch for this and smack ‘em out of it a few times, you effectively nullify that tactic.
Having said all that, I wasn’t there. So maybe your 8 hurricanes in a row weren’t as blatantly foolish as I’m picturing them in my head ;-)
Congrats on placing in all the games!
July 9th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
THE EVOLUTION OF JOHNNY
GGX: TOPZ
GGXX: Top/High
#R Low Mid
Slash High Mid (or just Mid).
He’s awesome in Slash though. Can still deal out retarded damage with style. But I’m not suprised to not see an impressive Johnny tounry showing.
July 10th, 2006 at 9:22 am
“I started the round with 8(!) consecutive helicopter kicks, demonstrating that the move is too good.”
Ah, what a match. Sorry but that won’t work anymore ;) Thought you played well David, and was suprised you weren’t able to qualify. You had a very tough draw, otherwise I think you could easily have been top 8 no doubt. In any case, I’m positive you’ll qualify at EVO east, EVO west was chalk full of big names, tough matches, and tough draws. Lets practice when you have time, my Zangief is lurking….
- Alex
July 12th, 2006 at 6:24 am
Kicks:
Sorry, but it’s hard for me to think of a game as “incredible” when it comes down to Jin vs. Jin in the end. I definitely see the good ideas, but Jin just kills everything and that’s why everyone hated it. Actually though, some of the top players are now saying similar things to you, and that 4 would’ve been better than 5 were it not for Jin.
To some degree I can see DR being more random due to the damage of wall combos, but I still think it’s mostly the increasing quality of play. This is an idea of Stephen Jay Gould (R.I.P.) and Bill James that was written with regards to baseball but applies to almost any competitive game; it would take far too long for me to fully explain here, but I can write a separate comment for it if anyone is interested.
Also, Sirlin, here is perhaps another thing that might explain DOA:
Using the Babylon 5 analogy from your book, there are a couple respected DOA players who behave very much like the Shadows. They constantly attack everyone except themselves, occasionally pretend to be friends with someone and then turn on them, and never give any credit when they do lose. When the last of these things happens, they’ll say that the controllers suck or they don’t have anyone to play and that’s why they lose or DOA4 is just a trash game that they don’t care about anyway.
Might this be a factor in the low offline turnouts? You don’t mention this in the book, but I think the Vorlons’ approach is clearly superior for a game whose community is small and needs to grow. As such, I understand that these guys want to help the community but think that they’re going about it entirely the wrong way. The community is trying to get people to show up to offline events…and then craps all over them when they do come and beat the big names? I’m not so sure I’d really want to be a part of that myself.
Just some idle thoughts…
July 20th, 2006 at 2:37 am
If your not going to explain the Stephen Jay, Gould Bill James, baseball thing could you at least provide a link?
July 23rd, 2006 at 12:16 pm
OK, there’s no link, it’s from the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, but I’ll try to explain it all concisely.
Basically, Stephen Jay Gould was a world-famous science author who is most well-known for his work relating to Darwinian evolution, as well as a baseball nut. He combined these two interests in an article relating to .400 hitters; for those who don’t know, Ted Williams remains the last major-league player ever to hit .400 in a season, and he did this all the way back in 1941. Thus, many people think the lack of .400 hitters is evidence that the quality of major-league baseball is lower now than it used to be. In Gould’s article, however, he applies the concepts of evolution to baseball to show that the opposite is true - there are no .400 hitters because the average players are closer to the best nowadays, so the overall quality of play is higher. Or, to put it more clearly, pitchers as a whole are better now so nobody can get that high a batting average.
Now, on to Bill James. Bill James has been applying serious intellectual scrutiny to all kinds of baseball ideas for around 30 years now, and he may very well be the most influential figure in the game during this period. He was greatly intrigued by Gould’s theory, and searched for a way to prove whether or not it was actually true. He finally found a method and wrote about his findings in 2000, in the book I mentioned at the beginning.
Here’s the idea: James looked at the following levels of organized baseball:
1. Youth leagues (i.e. 7-year-olds and such)
2. Little League
3. High school
4. College
5. Minor-league
6. Major-league
We all know that with each level, the quality of play increases. So James studied various statistics and facts in all of these leagues, and looked for consistent trends that appear as you move up this ladder. It is unnecessary to list them all here - some include higher fielding percentages, more double plays, weaker hitting from pitchers (a sign that they have to concentrate more on their main job), and…less difference between the best players and the average. So, it looks like Gould may be on to something here.
The final step for James, however, was to look at major-league baseball over time and see if these same trends occur. And guess what? Just about all of them do. And in periods where we can all agree that the quality of major league play decreased, such as World War II (when most of the real major leaguers were in the military), these indicators all went in the opposite direction (fielding percentages were worse, etc.).
Although not absolute proof, this is a very, very strong indication that the quality of play in major-league baseball increases over time. And the same thing applies to other competitive games as well; as the quality improves, the average players get closer to the best.
And that’s about it! So, this is what I was talking about re: Tekken 5’s “random” wins. I do think that part of this randomness comes from the game itself, mostly due to its 50-75% wall combos, but part of it also comes from this effect.
-Josh
October 4th, 2006 at 7:09 am
Sigh I hate hearing about Tekken being random..that utterly disrespects what my boy jra64 has worked hard to accomplish..it degrades the fact that he has slaved to be where he is only to hear people say Tekken 5 is “random.”
To me and to him that is majorly their excuse for losing…and he says the same thing..them losing to him saying its random is their main excuse..sad it is…
Pathetic actually..why not get better at the game and quit with the excuses calling it random..
Thats the easy way out..