From: el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (This Space for Rent)
Subject: Re: Being a Master?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 12:27:05 GMT

On the topic of SF2 sportsmanship:

I went to Space Port the other day.  (I've been going there more often now
that the joysticks at the Union have turned to crap.  Amaxingly enough,
the joysticks on one of the classic machines work very well.)

Well, one of the no-throwers (read 'no-talent') players was there.  He
has since given up playing CE against the regulars.  I haven't seen him
around the CE machine since he cried 'cheap' at the beginning of the year.

He was playing Guile vs. Dhalsim--- and losing badly to what I consider
intermediate strategy playing.  Dhalsim was throwing fireballs and
forward kicking Guile, occasionally coming in with a foot-drill/noogie.
The Guile player didn't know what to do against this type of strategy.
He didn't follow his sonic booms to get in close to Dhalsim,  he just
stayed in defensive crouch to charge for a new sonic boom.  Of course,
you're not going to out fireball Dhalsim and if you don't get close
enough, you can't hurt him.  He was trying pretty lame stuff like jumping
straight up and fierce punching on the way down to try to hit Dhalsim's
limbs.

Anyway, he lost the first round and was losing badly the second round
when Dhalsim did a roundhouse slide which put him right next to Guile.
So the guy does the machine reset.  I know he did it on purpose because
I recognize the joystick motions and the buttons presses, and he wasn't
subtle about it.  He scraped his hand across the fierce and roundhouse
buttons.  He turns around and gives me this stupid grin while the poor
Dhalsim player is there looking confused.

I ask, "Why did you do that?"

"Oh, he was being cheap," he replies.

"What do you mean?"

"He was doing forward kick/fireball and cheaping.  That's the worst way
to win."

"So what?  That's not cheap.  It's not like Guile can't do anything about
it.  What's cheap is you reset the game on purpose.  He has NO chance
then.  He automatically loses his quarter."

"Did he do that?" asks the Dhalsim player, overhearing our conversation.

"Yeah, he reset the game on purpose," I reply.

There is a short pause before the Guile player gives the Dhalsim player
a quarter and says, "Fine.  Play Guile."

So I plop in my quarter and the Dhalsim player plops in his quarter and
we play Guile vs. Dhalsim --- a classic confrontation which was REALLY
annoying in classic, but I kind of miss it after all the Ken/Ryu wars
in CE.

Well, I beat the guy first round and was winning second round when the
Guile player says, "See ya."  He takes off.

The ironic part is that the four rounds that we played and I won, we
played 'no-throw', but only inadvertantly.  Or rather, because I forced
Dhalsim to play no-throw.  You see, in classic, if Guile goes in for the
throw even ONCE, there's the chance that Dhalsim will grab him and
noogie him to death.  Therefore, part of the Guile strategy is to not
go for the throw.  Another aspect of this strategy is to never let
Dhalsim into a position in which he can throw.

Of course, if you are childish and whine about inescapable ticks or
annoying strategies, you may be able to get your opponents to stop
doing them.  If they do, you'll never learn a thing.  And if they
don't, you reset the machine or walk away from the challenge by
dismissing your opponent as 'cheap' and below your meager ability.
And in that case, you don't learn a thing, either.

I guess _I_ learned something though.  I thought that the no-throw
arcades develop because of some sort of 'good sportsmanship'---
where they let you get up when you're dizzy, etc.  However, after
further consideration, I think it's a result of 'poor sportsmanship'.

Consider:  At some point, someone has to tell someone else that his/her
tactics are 'cheap'.  What happens then?  If nothing happens, then the
arcade eventually gravitates to SF2--- TO THE DEATH mode we see here
at UIUC.  If the 'cheaper' gives in and conforms to some unwritten rules,
then it gravitates to the 'ethical arcade'.  

What typically happens as I see it is that if the 'cheaper' ignores
the 'rule enforcers', they bring out some character or player who's a
master 'cheaper'.  They 'show' you that 'cheaping' is not the way of
virtue by soundly thrashing you with those tactics.  So, if you are not
as good at 'cheaping', then you must relent and conform by house rules.
And since no one ever 'cheaps', then you have no chance to improve your
cheaping abilities or ANTI-cheaping abilities.  So the enforcers hold a
monopoly on that aspect of the game.  At any point, the enforcers may
'cheap' his opponent and get away with it.  Why?  There's no one there
good enough to 'enforce the enforcer'.

The funniest thing, in my opinion, about these 'enforcers' is that
Chun Li is the 'cheaper of choice' for most of them.  After they lose
to your 'cheap sorry ass' as they like to put it, they bring out
Chun Li *I'm shaking in my boots!*.  But in a way, it makes sense.  I
mean, _I_ used Chun Li with better success than any other character
since, when people didn't know how to counter throws.  So in terms of
throwing and learning to position yourself to avoid getting thrown,
those people have not progressed past a very early stage in throwing
evolution, the Chun Li stage.

Of course, it's relatively simple to keep Chun Li away using any
character.  And the few times when they DO get in, they have their
cheap-lusting eyes so bent on throwing you that it's far too simple
to counter-throw.  But the BEST part is that rather than accepting
the fact that it's possible to escape their 'enforcer tactics', they
resort to calling you cheap for counter-throwing!  I love that one.
I guess it's cheap when you can do something easy which they can do
but also cheap to be able to do something difficult which they can't do.

I think the atmosphere of the game will gravitate toward the playing
style of the regulars, and the ones who dominate the game (dare I
say MASTERS?).  The evolution of our arcade would have been quite
different if I had chosen to play no-throw Guile and brought out
Chun Li as the 'enforcer' of no-throw rules.  Think about it.  It
took about two months of everybody playing every day to learn how to
beat Chun Li's throwing style.  Think about how hard it would be to
learn how to counter that if I only brought that out once a week or so
just to 'enforce' silly rules that _I_ made up!

I'm glad that Chun Li no longer strikes fear into the hearts of UIUC
players.  Instead, we have the attitude "you've got to be joking!"
when she's chosen as a main character.  Somewhere along the line,
someone remarked in my profile that I was the master of no particular
character.  That's not true.  I'm a Chun Li master.  Think for a moment
and try to imagine anyone at UIUC who is a better Chun Li player.  Now
think for a moment and try to imagine if there can possibly BE a better
Chun Li player... ANYWHERE!

I also consider myself to be a better Blanka player than anyone else
around, but that's just foolish pride.  The best part about challenging
is that no matter what character I choose to play, it causes my opponent
to moan pathetically, "Ohhh nooo!  Not <insert character name here>!".
I've gotten that exact same reaction from Ken, Ryu, Chun Li, Blanka,
Zangief, Vega, Balrog (against Blanka players), and Sagat.

I think that a 'master' may be measured somewhat objectively in this
way.  Like those weird psychology experiments, you can count how many
total people moan when a) a player enters the arcade b) a player
puts his quarter up or otherwise shows intent to play and c) a player
chooses his character.  The one with the most groans is a master!
By definition, the master is the one player of each arcade who all the
rest of the players fear!
-- 
Eu-Ming Lee (aka CyberGeek)                      el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
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