My thoughts on the Melty Blood US Scene.

[mizuki]

This is a very, very serious topic, as I hardly ever post anything seriously on here. If there is any stupid/useless posts made in this topic, I'll delete/issue a warning to post/poster. If you agree, don't just say "I agree" I'll just delete/warn you, give me your reason why.
---
Although my tourney experience for this game is limited to only 2 tourneys, my opinions may be limited, but I honestly think it is very, very valid.

Usually US scenes for fighting games are a lot lower in skill level then the Japanese, and only a handful of the Melty players have been playing for little over a couple of months, it still doesn't give an excuse on the "play style" factor of a lot of players. At Evo2k7, and at WT7, I noticed a very, VERY common facor. The characters and play styles.

From both these tourneys I can find a common character usage in the US.

Akiha, Satsuki, Nero, Ciel, and Nanaya.

Usually I don't have a problem with this (I play CvS2) but a lot of the combos/tactics being used are the same, boring ones I've seen for years in older match videos. In my NorCal vs SoCal commentary at WT7 I made a comment when I had the mic that "I've seen this match before, haven't I?" was actually just a joke, but since then I actually thought, "Wait, this is true!" Alot of people use the same character the same way which makes it seem boring an monotonous. Now if people whored out those characters, but had a distinct style of playing them I wouldn't be making this post. At West Toast 7, I played 3 Akihas, by the end of the tourney and a time to sit and rest and think, I know how to win against any Akiha in the US. Also watching the people play at the finals, and how they play I know how to counter alot of these common characters (Knowing does not equal executing against them, fyi).

"But it works!"
Indeed it does! Keep on using the same combos again and see how long this game will live for. Keep on using the same tactics for a certain character, the game won't be able to develop.

"Now wait Mizuki! You play CvS2!"
Indeed I do, but in CvS2 a lot of the player have their own distinct play style of the characters. Give me a video of Bas' Bison, and a video of Kindevu's Bison I most likely can differentiate between the two (I'd use Melty jp players but I'm at a loss for names atm). But give me a video of 2 US players who play the same character (In Melty), I doubt I can differentiate between them (of course, there are a few exceptions.)

"How can we take you seriously Mizuki, you fucking suck."
I just know this will come out sometime through the life of this thread. Just ask other people, ask people who have seen the game, and wait for their response, don't rush them, make them think it through. Most likely you will get a response similar to what I'm saying in this post. It is the same shit over again.

p.s. I've had not much sleep since I've come back from WT7, so forgive me if I use broken english or something in this post.

[mir]

To be fair, people will tend to look for a balance between easy to execute and optimal damage when they pick their combo of choice, hence you see a lot of the same combos. Another thing, there are cases where the player knows a better/different combo but opts out of it because they simply cannot do it (consistently). Hell, I know if I land a poke mid-screen I should do them newfangled combos, but I can't even if my life depended on it. So I'm stuck with 2 options, one of which easy but with shitty output (air combo), or one that requires EX moves at start and end of the combo (provided I don't F it up). Poor execution = rely on safe moves = boring play.

Another point you made is that some characters seem to be preferred to others. I think it ties in directly to the playtime comment. If you just started, it is much easier to pick up akiha/ciel/nero  due to hp/easy bnb+clash/yeah nero than say...aoko.

So where am I going with this...I guess I would say give it time. Those who attain the level of execution that allows them to do the hard shit will have a better and overall more enjoyable game. Rest..well...huaa can't be all that hard now can it?

[Idolo]

mizuki, its great that you posted this up. in some respects, i have to agree with you. but here are my thoughts on your 'points' listed below:


"But it works!"
you have a good point here saying that the game wont be able to develop if everyone uses the same thing over and over again. imo though, i think that everyone gets what they know from the people they play and whatevers on youtube, at least thats how a few of us Sac players are. unlike japan, we dont have a huge crowd of players to play with. we cant just go to our local arcade (if any at all, Sac doesnt have any arcades, just like 3 internet cafes) and play with whoevers on the melty blood machine. we dont have that. we have to play with whoever we have in the area and we can only develop our styles/skills from that experience. even though it may seem like there isnt any development, i bet somewhere in japan some fucking nut is out there on a melty blood machine looking for an infinite loop on white ren . bottom line, US players just dont have enough access to each other in order to develop new styles, thats why i believe netplay is essential to the livelihood of the North American scene in general; maybe even the worlds.

"Now wait Mizuki! You play CvS2!"
i kind of touched on this point above. i believe that most players take what they see from the internet and try to mimic that, seeing how it works. thats why i understand when you say 'ive seen this match before', because most of the time, i do too . i mean, they really do mimic each other to a certain extent, only difference being how they react to one another. but now, take my style and Tsubasa's and compare it. even though hes wayyyyyyyyyyy better than i am, there is a distinct difference in how we play. imo, most of the Sac community plays differently than those of the SJ players since we developed in a different way with different motives in mind. now moving on to the 'same character being used up the ass' point, i just think it has something to do with that stupid tier thing and how playable they are. imo, akiha, nero, nanaya, ciel and satsuki (to a certain point) are all seemingly easy characters to pick up which makes them prime targets to be a persons main. taking off with that in mind, those players then fly over to youtube and find out what kind of stuff they can do and try to mimic it. things might not be as deep as they seem and might just be quite shallow. there are, however, those special cases where players will force themselves to play with a character just due to loyalty of their favorite character (me ).


"How can we take you seriously Mizuki, you fucking suck."
im only responding to this because you flaked on the 73cm cup at SJSU. WTF mang?!

show up to the next Sac-SJ tourney, or else something nasty might show up in my sig . look foward to seeing you there.

[Kryojenix]

Look at any major fighting game out there.  No matter how balanced the game is, it'll still have their upper tier characters that see more use than the rest.  Ken(3S)?  No way!  Magneto(MvC2)?  Get outta here!  Bison(CvS2)?  What'll they think of next?  From a tournament viewpoint, your opinion is valid cause you can generally divide players into 2 major groups:  those who enter tourneys and want to win and those who don't and just want to have fun.  So if you want to see other characters being used, you're going to have to look outside tournaments.  Otherwise, you're just going to see people who want to win and will use the easiest character to do it with.  Hell, I've seen Tom fuck around with Kouma during casuals.  Scott will goof around w/ Aoko and Numakie with NAC.  But when it's tourney time, we bust out our best, and being U.S., are best are mostly Japanese clones.  I'm sure all our top players use characters that made it to finals in SBO or something.

Another point is that MBAC is a highly pressure based game.  You might see some rare baiting and turtling but you'll mostly see whatever tactics maximize pressure (or turn it around).  Honestly, the game mostly looks like *blockstring*, *blockstring*, *mash 2a to confirm into combo*.

Finally, MBAC pack a nice 20+ characters, but lacks any variety per characters.  In CvS2, tactics will change based on groove.  Likewise with super arts in 3S and maybe with assists in MvC2.  For a counterpoint, look at ST or GG.  They offer no vareity at all per characters so chances are that any high level play with each character will look pretty much the same.

Final thesis: who gives a damn as long as people are having fun?  Honestly, there was a time when dealing with the same Chun tactics over and over again pissed me off to no end but I eventually learned that if I keep falling for it, it's my own damn fault.  Dealing with the same shit (and hopefully learning from it) makes it that much easier to beat.

Side note: I take quite a bit of pride in playing characters that go relatively unused as well as playing differently from others who use the same characters.  I mostly play to have fun and mess around.  My main reason for entering tourneys is that I quite enjoy this game but I regularly get to play with only a small number of people.  I have plenty of people to play 3S with so you'll rarely see me enter tourneys for that.

[Zaido]

just to touch up upon the everyone doing the same combo and what not..

some character, imo.. only have so many things they can do differently, and there isnt' really much options they can change to make it worth while. If that character were to change its style tos oemthign different, it might might just make it pointless since that character wasn't design for that type of style... so i just want to say that certain character can only chang eup so much, but as much as it do try to change things up, it only ends up being the 2 or 3 things that it does repeditively.

[WickedElement]

Every point that Kryojenix and Zaido made pretty muCh sums it up as to why. For me anyway... Good stuff.

[Draku]

While I agree with lots of these points...

Idolo is quite right, not many US Melty players can play with more than just the CPU and very rarely a real person. Netplay is the only possible way for them to play. This is true in my case, and the only friend I know IRL that plays Melty can't exactly play with me much. My skills are still bad due to such limitations.

Oh well.

[Legendary Blue Shirt]

I'm going to compare this with Super Smash Bros. Melee now.

In SSBM everyone and their mother plays as Marth, Shiek, and space animals competitively.
That said, Marth will always try to distance himself to hit you with the tip of his sword, space animals will only use advanced tactics when fighting, and Shiek will try to juggle you in the air as long as humanly possible.

In SSBM "combos" in the traditional sense are the most difficult part of the game to learn, whereas in MB it's easy to mash buttons and eventually find some, even if they suck.  Some characters can't even do it.  What ends up happening is learning combos in MB and using them effectively even if they are difficult tends to not attract as much interest as seeing the almighty Ken (Look him up on youtube.) use his 5-6 hit Marth combos.

A main factor for the development of character tactics and strategy is the size and diversity of the player base.  Note the distinct lack of an English release of MB in the US.  Having groups of people who think differently in very fundamental ways is one of the greatest things that can happen for the success of a game.

And now for something completely different...
Ever heard of DotA? (Defense of the Ancients)
It started out as a Warcraft3 custom map, but got popular and now has worldwide attention and tournaments.  Why is this relevant?  Because if you see international teams play against each other in this setting, my above argument becomes clearer.  Players from a particular country tend to play the same way, make the same decisions, and value certain items the same way as each other for almost no apparent reason.  Russians tend to buy Necronomicons for just about any hero they pick.  Why?  No idea.  But it's an interesting strategy, no?  You'll also see American players act more aggressively than others and attempt to go Rambo style 1v5 at every opportunity.
I apologize in advance if no one gets my specific reference, but maybe some people will get it.

[F9|Chibi]

The real inherent problem with the scene (it's relative though, but that's just my opinion) are the people who play the game, pick their character, and just start doing their own shit. And when I say start doing their own shit, it's basically whoring out something against the people with lesser match up expierence / playtime that don't know any better.

ie: Doing Akiha's tech punish in the middle of the screen, ie doing j.BB as a combo ender with Hisui when you're nowhere near the corner, ie doing an invalid hotfoot loop with Kouma, etc.

Stop. Doing. That. Shit.

There's two things to consider here.

1. The damage. If your opponent doesn't know any better, it's free damage, so why not keep doing it?

2. A bad habit.

The thing about MB is, even when you have a good viable tactic / strategy, don't use it more then once consecutively, or even in the same match. This game is 100% getting into your opponent's head and staying there. You can do stupid (or even good shit) against an opponent for however long you want, but the instant you go up against someone better then you, you're fucked because you don't have a back up plan. Basic yomi shit.

You have something good, you use it. It works. So you use it again, and it works again. Your oppenent dies. You go to play someone else.

You still have something good, you use it. It works. So you use it again, and suddenly it doesn't work anymore. Your opponent catches on. Now what? You didn't think that far ahead. You hadn't figured out how to counter your own counter, thus you don't know how to deal with it, and now you're fucked.

Instead it should go:

You still have something good, you use it. It works. So now you something else that's good, and it works. Now your oppenent doesn't know what the fuck you're going to do next, so you can:

Try using the first good thing you had.
Throw.
Use a THIRD option.

And continously fuck shit up so you stay in his head as best possible.

This is why Zar is a beast (imho). First he'll find something good, then he'll sit down and figure what he would do if he was playing against it, and then he figures out how to counter the counter. Playing him hurts my damn head, because I'll be in his head for the shortest amount of time, and bam, he's gone and I have to spend forever trying to get in again.

Oh and Mizuki, suck it up and step your damn game up. Sit down and practice already, I hope you're not as bad as you were at Evo, because you didn't even want to play then.

[FireBearHero]

You just need more new people in your scene.
Recently over here I got this guy whose been playing fighting games all his life to pick up Melty Blood ver.B for PC and we've all had to totally change our shit around(as it should be).

We've never had the problem of everyone using the same character, though; we've got an Aoko, Miyako, Sion, Akiha, Nero, Warachia, Len, and 2 Ceils. The rest of the players I don't know their character picks because I haven't played anyone but these in a long time.
Ceil in this area is just a huge joke because we all just use her to fill up our meter with easy shields.

Come to think of it i've never seen any videos of players playing like us. We place heavy emphasis on filling our bars right away by shield everything for a while and then switching to the superior parry.
Area differences = total truth.

[COD3player]

Look at any major fighting game out there.  No matter how balanced the game is, it'll still have their upper tier characters that see more use than the rest.  Ken(3S)?  No way!  Magneto(MvC2)?  Get outta here!  Bison(CvS2)?  What'll they think of next?  From a tournament viewpoint, your opinion is valid cause you can generally divide players into 2 major groups:  those who enter tourneys and want to win and those who don't and just want to have fun.  So if you want to see other characters being used, you're going to have to look outside tournaments.  Otherwise, you're just going to see people who want to win and will use the easiest character to do it with.  Hell, I've seen Tom fuck around with Kouma during casuals.  Scott will goof around w/ Aoko and Numakie with NAC.  But when it's tourney time, we bust out our best, and being U.S., are best are mostly Japanese clones.  I'm sure all our top players use characters that made it to finals in SBO or something.

Another point is that MBAC is a highly pressure based game.  You might see some rare baiting and turtling but you'll mostly see whatever tactics maximize pressure (or turn it around).  Honestly, the game mostly looks like *blockstring*, *blockstring*, *mash 2a to confirm into combo*.

Finally, MBAC pack a nice 20+ characters, but lacks any variety per characters.  In CvS2, tactics will change based on groove.  Likewise with super arts in 3S and maybe with assists in MvC2.  For a counterpoint, look at ST or GG.  They offer no vareity at all per characters so chances are that any high level play with each character will look pretty much the same.

Final thesis: who gives a damn as long as people are having fun?  Honestly, there was a time when dealing with the same Chun tactics over and over again pissed me off to no end but I eventually learned that if I keep falling for it, it's my own damn fault.  Dealing with the same shit (and hopefully learning from it) makes it that much easier to beat.

Side note: I take quite a bit of pride in playing characters that go relatively unused as well as playing differently from others who use the same characters.  I mostly play to have fun and mess around.  My main reason for entering tourneys is that I quite enjoy this game but I regularly get to play with only a small number of people.  I have plenty of people to play 3S with so you'll rarely see me enter tourneys for that.

I agree with pretty much everything except the part about GG having no variety. No one can say that Sol plays the same as Eddie, Baiken, or Axl without looking like they don't have a damn clue. I've played the game since X (2001) and I can rightfully say that the series has much more variety and complexity than most people give it credit for. ST seemingly has little variety because in matches, you'll see a lot of fireball spamming any time you see a character who has a projectile.

[Qaenyin]

Given the general stigma with "lolnetplay" floating around as well, this causes additional issues since a large number of the more skilled players refuse to play netplay because it "will make them suck."  So unfortunately a large number of the people of middling skill will have a less diverse number of opponents to go up against, and that limits their ability to learn.

I do also agree about the similarities between players of a given character.  Even fairly inexperienced players often have the same playstyle overall as the top tier players, they simply fuck up the timing or spacing more often.  But they end up trying to do the exact same thing.

[AnFox]

The thing about MB is, even when you have a good viable tactic / strategy, don't use it more then once consecutively, or even in the same match.

It should go:

You still have something good, you use it. It works. So now you something else that's good, and it works. Now your oppenent doesn't know what the fuck you're going to do next, so you can:

Try using the first good thing you had.
Throw.
Use a THIRD option.

And continously fuck shit up so you stay in his head as best possible.

Whats funny about this is that its true for ANY fighter out there.

It depends on how well developed the scene is and how informative/better their players are/want to be.

[Boku]

Final thesis: who gives a damn as long as people are having fun?  Honestly, there was a time when dealing with the same Chun tactics over and over again pissed me off to no end but I eventually learned that if I keep falling for it, it's my own damn fault.  Dealing with the same shit (and hopefully learning from it) makes it that much easier to beat.

QFT.

I play the game because it's fun for me and there's an actual scene for it, otherwise I'd be practicing BnB's on CPU's in MBAC (or god forbid GGXXAC, cause there's no local scene that I know of) out of sheer boredom.

I'm happy I found a fun game with a fairly local scene filled with awesome people. That's enough for me.

[F9|Chibi]

The thing about MB is, even when you have a good viable tactic / strategy, don't use it more then once consecutively, or even in the same match.

It should go:

You still have something good, you use it. It works. So now you something else that's good, and it works. Now your oppenent doesn't know what the fuck you're going to do next, so you can:

Try using the first good thing you had.
Throw.
Use a THIRD option.

And continously fuck shit up so you stay in his head as best possible.

Whats funny about this is that its true for ANY fighter out there.

It depends on how well developed the scene is and how informative/better their players are/want to be.

Well it obviously APPLIES to every fighting game out there, but it's just not as apparent. Or perhaps it doesn't seem that way sometimes.

There's just odd mindset that this shit shouldn't apply to MB, or that people doing their own thing are suddenly brandishing a 'unique' playstyle, when instead they're ignoring strengths of their character or not understanding the basic gameplay of the game (ie going for damage when it won't kill a character when they should opt for airthrow, doing no oki after opponents wake up, where it tends to be the scariest).

[mizuki]

Thanks guys for the non-retarded posts.

Maybe I am a little to ahead, since many newer people are just getting into the game.
I have to agree with Chibi with Zar. Of US players he's probably my favorite person to watch in the US. Like Chibi said, if what he does doesn't work, he'll pop something else out of his ass to adapt. Hopefully in the next couple of years the US scene will be able to do this kind of stuff.

Oh and Mizuki, suck it up and step your damn game up. Sit down and practice already, I hope you're not as bad as you were at Evo, because you didn't even want to play then.

Chibi, I didn't place last. Still without practice I placed a higher than a few other NorCal peeps. White Len won some games =).

[F9|Chibi]

Chibi, I didn't place last. Still without practice I placed a higher than a few other NorCal peeps. White Len won some games =).

Oh I know that, but your heart didn't seem to be in it at the time, I hope that's changed.

:3

[Qaenyin]

I'd agree about Zar, he's probably the only stateside player that I can actually find myself curious to see what he'd do about a given situation, since he doesnt just do "The same thing as against everything else, with different timing, or block".

[mizuki]

Chibi, I didn't place last. Still without practice I placed a higher than a few other NorCal peeps. White Len won some games =).

Oh I know that, but your heart didn't seem to be in it at the time, I hope that's changed.

:3

Yes, yes it is. Everyone will fear White Len soon enough. She still sucks though :3

[Qaenyin]

This is Melty Blood's problem and it'll take a great player to make the character different from any other player.  Problem is of course, if that player makes too good an innovation, everyone else will copy the player causing the same problem all over again.

And thats how the overall level of play evolves, isn't it?

If that wasn't the case then no one would practice at all since if everyone stays an awful player then theyre still even, so improving would be pointless.


The point here is not that people using the same combos for damage is bad.  The point is that people don't progress.  They just keep doing the same thing as always with slightly better timing, and their blocking/shield timing/whatever improves somewhat.  They don't adapt or try to diversify.

Combos aren't the only things that can define a player.  Setups, mixups, mindgames, there are plenty of things to define a playstyle.  Otherwise people would just spam the same blockstring times a billion until their opponent accidentally slips a block and takes damage, and rounds would time out more often than they would actually resolve.

[Last Elixir⑨]

There were 1.5 Neros (arly and mason), 0.5 Nanayas (myself and only against Arly), and 0.5-1 Satsukis (Mason).  Out of 23 people who showed up that's definitely a dominating % of the people there.  3 Ciels and 4 Akihas is a valid point and you can complain about that if you want.  However out of those 4 Akihas, none of them were Psylocke.  If you think you can just play against the four at WT7 and then say you know how to beat Psylocke, I will laugh at you. 

lolol it's so true, don't line any of us up and compare us to psylocke, I say this because dakanya was playing stick.

As for the original topic, I agree with a lot of opinions flying here. It's really hard to keep shit original when our options are so limited. I honestly don't care as long as it's fun, and I got a lot of practice to do that'll keep me occupied. If people are getting to the point where they aren't getting anything from the game, everything appearing to be the same old shit, I say take up something else with your time, why keep playing?

j

[Qaenyin]

I wasn't necessarily talking about skill level, specifically, either.  I do agree that the game is more limited than, say, guilty gear in terms of comboing.  But I meant progression of the player base as a whole.  There's definitely still stuff out there people havent figured out, I'm sure.

And just because something isnt the optimal option doesn't mean it doesn't have it's uses.  But I digress, thats for another topic entirely.

[F9|Chibi]

$50 on Zar's Akiha against every WC Akiha.

Shit is freeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[F9|Chibi]

Chibi: I only used Psylocke as a specific example to prove a point, don't uselessly be a cheerleader for Zar.  There's no point, everyone knows already it's not revelent to the current conversation.  =/ 

Hell if I care.

Scott here just proved my point btw.

Thanks guy. You should listen to H-F Blade.

[linalys]

Mmm right sorry then.