From: el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (This Space for Rent)
Subject: Re: SF2 regulars at UIUC.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 07:56:27 GMT

I won't include the rest of the article, because I assume that the only
people who actually read those posts were the people mentioned in them.
Yeah, so let's have a conversation about ourselves.

The problem with me:
I'm always trying to learn some new intricacy about the game.  For me,
it's not winning the game which is important, it's learning some basic
understanding of it.  If I happen to use that to my advantage to win,
so be it.

I don't play to win when either of the joysticks are not working
properly.  It's meaningless whether you win or lose.  I take those
opportunities to have fun and possibly frustrate my opponent ;).
IMO, the controls haven't been working properly since Halloween.
I haven't played a 'serious' game since.

In general, if the machine is not busy (there's less than 4 or 5 people
waiting), I'm not playing to win.  I'm playing to learn.  So you'll see
me LET you come in and tick or not DP when you jump in.  I purposely
disadvantage myself in certain situations to figure out HOW to react
in those situations.  I'll let you walk from way far away behind that
sonic boom JUST so I can see if I can counter-throw it consistently.

In classic, I learned all of the cheapest matchups.  I figured out ways
in which to completely unbalance the game.  (Honda beats Chun Li and
Blanka 100%, Dhalsim beats Honda, Ken, Ryu 100%, Guile beats Chun Li,
Ken, Ryu 100%, etc.)  So far, I haven't discovered anything which gives
such a strong advantage over another character in CE with the original 8.
The most unbalanced matchups were duly noted in the matchups chart I
posted.

The new joysticks have me disgruntled.  Every time I perform a 'quick'
DP--- meaning one which I do out of reflex and not ANY anticipation,
I get a little bit of skin ripped off of my finger because the joysticks
are so short (about 1 inch long from top of the joystick to the top of
the screws).  I haven't been able to perform the short sweep/dragon punch
6 or 7 hitter on that game because of the funky joysticks.  I prefer not
to learn intensive joystick motions on a 'non-standard' joystick because
I hate to learn joystick motions wrong, because those are very hard to
unlearn.

In response to Caine:  You mentioned how you tend to lose near the
end of the match when the opponent has little energy left and it's
difficult for you to finish him off.  Against me, anyway, I tend to
experiment until I get behind in the match.  Then I play 'serious' to
see if I can get back into the game.  That may be your difficulty against
me, anyway.  I find that 'serious' playing should be reserved only to
try to win the round when it's just nearly too late to do so.  I get
bored with it if I have to do it the entire round.  That's why I hate
Ken/Ryu battles, especially vs. Hamed (Amin?).  He plays serious the
entire round, DP-ing when I jump in and all of that fireball and
footsweep stuff.  So that forces ME to play serious against him because
he's the only one I stand very little chance of catching up on if I
fall behind

As Seth says to me, "You're no fun.  Everytime I try to do something
fun or new, you kill me."  Well, sorry Seth.  Now you know that I
only play serious when I'm behind, so try your fun stuff at the beginning
of the rounds when we're even rather that when you're ahead.o

And, yes, I took Seth to the SF2 school of ticking and counter-ticking
one day.  We played 2 or 3 games of SF2 classic (that's 20 or 30 rounds!)
which were ONLY ticking.  The game goes as follows:  Let the challenger
(the one who lost the last round) initiate whatever tick he feels like:
aerial roundhouse, then throw or short, short, throw.  If the counter-
ticker takes damage from the throw, roundhouse, dragon punch, or whatever
fake or tick, then the ticker gets another chance.  If the ticker fails
to do any damage, whether he's counter-thrown, his fake is blocked, or
his messed up throw is blocked, then the counter-ticker becomes the ticker.
Any and all fakes are legal.  You can jump in and throw without hitting
roundhouse, but you can't do walk up and throw (since it's indistinguishable
from walking up to short sweep).  The round ends when the counter-ticker
gives up.  Then we damage each other so that the round is a tie.  If the
counter-ticker does not give up and manages to lose two rounds, then the
loser must pay for the next game.

In our competition, I won the majority of the rounds because Seth was
not very good at countering short, short, throws.  Even when he expected
it, he wasn't good at countering it.  However, his ability to counter-throw
the aerial ticks has improved.

-- 
Eu-Ming Lee (aka CyberGeek)                      el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
If you have nothing good to say, sit down, shut up, and post to USENET.
Newsgroups: alt.games.sf2