Pros, Winning, Variety, Underdogs and Viewers

I had no idea what I should have called this but I figured this works.

Okay, so today at SEAM we got to witness something we haven't seen for awhile; a non Echo Fox Grand Finals. I don't mean non BOTH, I mean non EF in general. Saint came in 5th, and JDCR 3rd, losing to Qudans finally(whom he had come back to beat last week.) Last week, Qudans had put JDCR in losers, but JDCR came back through, to reset the bracket and beat him.

This time Qudans was knocked to the Loser Finals by Noroma(JDCR having been hit by Qudans again), but Qudans managed to squeak out a 3-2 victory to JDCR, to go on to reset vs. Noroma(3-0 the first time, but 3-2 the second-it was close.) The top 8 was a lot of fun in general, and everyone enjoyed it.

And of course there was a lot of 'Man, FINALLY no EF Grand Finals!' And I do get it; we like to see a variety up there, of course. People who win too much end up sometimes with 'Patriots Syndrome'(nicknamed for the New England Patriots and how they win a lot, and people like to watch people unseat them.) I totally get the whole 'Rooting for the Underdog' thing-that's nothing new at all. Once you seat yourself somewhere as one of the best, you'll always have folks rooting for the underdog(see people rooting against Sonic Fox, and back in the day, there was a lot of 'Is someone ELSE going to beat Justin Wong in MvC2?' I mean it's actually fun competition, and in a way, it's a big circle; eventually when someone DOES upset the boat, if they keep doing it, people want to know who will beat them, and so forth. Like, ET was getting a lot of people rooting for him in KOFXIV because he was the underdog to Xiao Hai(and ET did win that, though as an aside I think his Benimaru carried more weight in that than his Daimon, but don't tell the fanbase that).

And hell, sometimes the underdog isn't even an underdog. People wanted to see Tokido unseat Punk at EVO-and Tokido's the veteran! But why? Well, Punk had a much bigger streak going.

But when I think about it-people talk about how they wished there was more variety in top competition...but that, IME, generally points to a game being not balanced particularly well. When there are stable winners, IMO(I don't even mean just Grand Finals, I mean like, top 8 stuff), the game is pretty solidly balanced. It means it rewards good play, practice, and dedication; and if these players have favorite characters they like(even a couple-in Tekken, it's rare that anyone sticks with just one these days, Qudans is actually an exception, being a Devil Jin loyalist through and through), and can stick with them? That's even better.

But, well, with this solid balance and the ability to basically be devoted to a couple of characters means that yeah-that can, from time to time, cut down variety that viewers see, be it on line or in tournament itself.

Now, this isn't always the case. Combo Breaker had a Echo Fox GF, and that was said this year to be one of the most fun Tekken GFs. It was JDCR vs. Saint, but people really enjoyed it. I mean it had a great quality of play-but so did others? I don't know if it was the crowd, the commentary, or just the matches, but that EF Grand Final seemed to have a much better general crowd reaction. (And EVO was pretty damn hype, too, I saw.)

But I think it's sort of a double-edged sword, in a way. Excellent balance and consistency means that you will be seeing very similar people in similar positions(barring upsets, which of course happen from time to time anywhere), playing their favored characters. So it's great for the game and, IMO, the competitors, but the viewers-in particularly casual ones-can be left a bit cold after seeing the same thing a lot.

Or, on the flipside, crazy-go-nuts balance and inconsistency means you never know who the hell you're going to see in top 16s or 8s, or who they'll be playing(since likely everyone will need a couple of characters to handle poor MUs.) It's definitely random for the viewers, and perhaps the casual viewers would like it more.

This isn't only fighting games, btw. ANYTHING competitive, people I think inherently, even the ones who like consistency and reward for heavy devotion and skill-like to see upsets. I think in some ways it makes people inspired(I mean, yes, Rocky lost in the first movie, but if he always lost, it would be kinda crappy), when the underdog wins, they can maybe work toward that win. Hell, I can't lie, seeing Qudans win made me want to take my Devil Jin out this week some(I've been on a bit of a hiatus-though not guide writing, I'm still doing plenty of that.)

In World of Warcraft, there's always, in cycles, some guilds who are always the top dog. Like, it depends on the era, of course, but for example, in Vanilla you had Nihilium and Death and Taxes(for two.) Ensidia came along later(more from the ashes of Nihilium) and did a lot of good; back in Wrath of the Lich King, Ensidia had like 20 World First kills. One that people remember though(well, in that generation) is probably, if you ask(barring the one 'kill' that got Ensidia banned but that's neither here nor there), was Stars, a guild from Taiwan that seemingly came out of nowhere, getting the World First kill on Yogg Saron's 'No Light in the Darkness'. (For a long story short, it was the hardest mode you could do the boss on.) They did it through clever use of mechanics(btw, that boss got another guild banned too), and people following I remember were quite jazzed to see another guild come up from nowhere and figure the boss out.

Likewise, back in Catalcysm, while I forget exactly, I recall it was mostly Paragon, Ensidia and Method getting most of the WF kills...until the biggie, Spine of Deathwing, stopped like all the guilds cold. Oh yeah, then a bunch of guilds got banned for once again cheating a loot lock system.

Then when you thought someone had it figured out, a Korean guild by the name of KIN Raiders came up and ended it(and got the WF Dragon Soul clear. I had already almost quit the game out of rage at this point. I had severe burnout. No, we weren't world competitive, but being a heavy raider is hard.) People were pretty jazzed about that, too. Now granted, these guilds were awesome, but they hadn't really captured a lot of WFs before now, so they were underdogs in that sense.(also, that dwarf warrior kiting tank was a fucking hero. You know him by the one who had the 10000 slimes following him the entire time.)

In the case of some of these players-Qudans is a very respected OG-was still considered an underdog and still a welcome new winner. Noroma was a fairly unknown guy worldwide(NOW he's known!) I think when people stir the competition pot a bit, there's some excitement since we get more good players.

Not that there's a lack of good players, I think. Not all can travel a lot, for example. Some are stuck in small arcades places.

Now, when a known vet-Tokido is a good example-might be on a bit of a 'just missing out' streak-seeing them get back in and kick ass for a load of games is generally welcome. Like, Tokido won EVO, and he's won a few others since then too, and I think if he won CapCup this year, people would be pretty chill. However-if he kept taking every tournament, or if every tournament ended up as Tokido vs. Punk? I imagine people might start rooting for others. (Hell, I saw some people getting worn on Punk vs. Du, and I don't think they even did a ton, but maybe patience wears thin.)

Where I stand? Look, I just like watching good play. I mean JDCR plays my boy, and he's a great player, so yeah, I root for him even when he wins a lot. But I was happy to see Qudans win(and Noroma earlier)-I think they're great players and they put the work in. (I'm neutral on Jack, but I do have a bad Devil Jin I like to take out to play and try to practice with for one of my subs.) I root a lot for Nobi because his aggressive style is one of my favorite Dragunovs to watch.

But while I don't play Akuma in SF, I find myself rooting a lot for Tokido; I just like him, I love his playstyle, I love how he can adapt, he's just a lot of fun. I don't necessarily have to main-or even sub-the character someone plays to root for them.

For the record: I understand the sentiment of seeing a character a lot. But there's a lot, and there's *placing* a lot. See...while Jack is widely played in tournament(sorta-I mean Saint, Noroma, Anakin-he also plays Paul-Joey Fury, and yeah, a few others scattered about), Drag really isn't played as much as people think. Nobi plays him, JDCR plays him, Kkokkoma plays him half the time(he plays Kazumi the other half.) Knee HAS played him but it's very rare these days.

The US has a couple, but they don't make too many tournaments at all(and Aris these days commentates more often than competes.) The EU has some scattered ones(but usually in conjunction with another.) But at the end, there isn't a ton. If I were to count the amount of them that show up in any given tournament, the number would probably be on par with a ton of other characters. But, when someone wins with someone a lot

Now, if you want to see what real character whoring looks like, go check out things like:

-2011 Tekken 6(Bobs, Steve, and Law everywhere)
-SF3 Third Strike(Yun, Chun, and Ken 24/7)
-UMvC3(ohai Vergil, Morrigan and Doom)

Yeah, people who are tired of this? I can completely understand. When any given top 16 is full of like multiple copies of certain characters *regardless of whose playing*, THAT can get boring.

I don't think there's really an answer. You can't balance a game on tournaments IMO(unless it's a Black Adam situation, or a Bob 2011 situation, etc-like, extremes), and I feel that similar players are going to show up fairly often if your game is balanced. It's a case, I think, of others putting even more work in(and people do! Look at Qudans' adjustment this week!), and, well, competition is competition. Sometimes regulars win. Sometimes they get upset. Nothing wrong with rooting for the underdog at all(I think we all do it sometimes!) but at the same time I wish there was less salt in the community about it sometimes, but that's generally the internet nowadays, I guess.

I dunno where I was going with this, more just giving some commentary since it's been awhile since I've updated. I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the Tekken Globals and the Capcom Cup though! Will we see an upset...or will we see a regular?