Xrd and growing the GG community

[HeatEXTEND]

How do you get more players interested and increase the quantity of sold games without sacrificing the quality.

FYP NP.

Also, that's the trillion dollar question lol.

Edit: Also I'd like to add that in my experience "airdashers" are harder for "potential FG players/FG players" to get into for 2 main reasons.

1. They never played fighting games and it's too many mechanics for them to start caring about learning them all, and by extension at all.

2. They have played "capcom games", and are perfectly happy with playing those type of games, if at all.

A skinned XXReload with pretty pictars won't fix these things. Also, 2D sprites look pretty. Prettier then 3D models. Also Pot got butchered.

TLDR; Xrd better have a rediculous netplay

Edited August 18, 2013 by FUCKSCRUBS

[Most Unknown]

Why is netplay such an issue...It actually hurts more then helps...On a individual basis, playing online is fine, but if you have a scene, its best to play them, instead of going online to play...

[SolxBaiken]

It actually hurts more then helps

I disagree, alot of good/up and coming players are "Online Warriors" and make it out to events and surprise people with how far they get. Netplay is the closest equivalent most have to any semblance of a scene. Is it ideal? No, it never will be, but is it a growing necessity? Yes, especially as the genre becomes more and more accessible and well known #WWeSports

[xAxLegitxLegend]

Good netplay is essential to the growth of the Arc System Fighters, however we can't become overly reliant, but the fact that our community can hold legit online tournaments since the connection is damn good puts us a step ahead of most other fighters because they have shitty internet. However, going and supporting the offline tournaments can help growth, however a lot of the pre-established tournaments already put these games on the back end which does not necessarily help growth. I think a lot of the problem has to do with the fact that people buy these games, and not necessarily for the competitiveness of the game, or to learn it. A lot of these newer games have really good story modes, with good character progression, nice survival and challenging score attack modes for most casual players that may be fulfilling in itself, which is why sales may show as pretty good, but may hurt the tournament scene.

I think trying to recruit people you encounter online during the beginning of the scene to sites like this, where they can learn about their local scenes helps, and people who get involved in going to locals (like in NYC, there is Next LeveL) will eventually branch out and go to the bigger tournaments in their surrounding area. Building local and recruitment helps in a long run, because a lot of people are simply ignorant to the scene. Recruiting people from other fighters may prove more futile, than getting people who are already interested in the game to learn more about the competitive scene.

Me personally, I was into 3D fighters and didn't get into 2D fighters seriously until BB:CT. And that was only because I loved the character design, story mode and the online had fun and friendly people. They would help me boost achievements, and we would stay in lobbies a long time...mostly for fun, spectating was fun when some good players came on and started destroying people, using moves that looked cool but took practice to do. I didn't even know this site existed until a little over a year ago, even though I had BB:CT in 2009.

I wouldn't even be interested into getting into Guilty Gear itself, if it wasn't for Blazblue community getting me to come here, to check the game out. So yeah. Just my 2 cents.

[Osuna]

I disagree, alot of good/up and coming players are "Online Warriors" and make it out to events and surprise people with how far they get. Netplay is the closest equivalent most have to any semblance of a scene. Is it ideal? No, it never will be, but is it a growing necessity? Yes, especially as the genre becomes more and more accessible and well known #WWeSports

I've heard tell of strong players from strong scenes getting counterpicked by people picking characters not represented in that scene. There are 23 characters and even if you have 30 people in your scene (Which would be Gigantic by GG standards) you won't likely be able to play against all of them if you never play online. Having 0 match up experience against even 1 member of the cast is a notable handicap.

[Ryu334]

I didn't know dustloop was around till I played BBCT either and I wanted to learn how to play heck I never played GG until after I played BB so netplay is good for me since I can play almost anytime I want unless I'm at work anyways anyways I just think the best way to grow any scene is to show up to locals and majors as much as possible an try to get people to understand the game before Xrd drops hopefully alot of anime players play BBCP at locals and majors...

[Sarixis]

In my efforts to spread GG like an infectious laugh, I have only three major hurdles to manage.

1. People never even hearing of the game.

2. The stigma of most fighting games being a 2-hit > death combo game

3. Locating members of the competitive scene for help practicing and getting advice.

The first hurdle isn't difficult as I haven't had a difficult time cultivating interest by mentioning it yet on my campus. I pretty much describe it as a very flavorful game where every character is like learning a unique martial art. If I get the two-hit death combo question my typical response is that not only does GG have system mechanics that work as safeguards to avoid this. Covering the first two hurdles is typically enough to generate interest in 2-5 people of a group but the third hurdle is the real challenge.

The third hurdle definitely the tallest since I haven't really seen a thread for GG players in my area/state (maybe I'm just blind). The problems this causes is that the groups I've fostered don't have a solid backbone of consistency to rely on if I can't be present consistently to handle meet-ups because of how demanding my major is. It also robs the chance to play against experienced players and learn from them in person to further improve.

This makes tournament attendance rough since GG doesn't mask skill; and at least from my experience, only being able to practice against a group of new blood doesn't let you gauge your progress in comparison to successful players. When I was active in the Smash scene I watched videos, read match up data, practiced against friends who were also learning, and set to learn my character inside and out. By the time I went to my first tournament on the east side of my state I thought at best I might place in the mid rankings. I ended up drowning in pools and developed a horrible case of tourney nerves that would recur even today. After accepting the reality of where I was compared to others I felt my attachment to the game dwindle a bit. I did find out there was an active group on my side and I would practice with them often and sought to keep improving. Eventually though I retired from Smash because I got tired of the massive tier list disparity and having played arcade fighters in my childhood, the interest re-surged. This led me to start playing GG and BB because I liked the overall ascetic and the overall gameplay didn't feel daunting to understand. I tried to foster scenes for both games but the BB one fell apart when my major had to take priority and the rest of the group wasn't sure how to keep the meet-ups stable. The GG group was started in mid spring and didn't really gain much time to develop and sort of went into hibernation. I feel like without experienced players to seek help from, that at their 1st tournament drowning in pools or poor placement overall could kill over half the group's motivation to even practice. After that 1st tournament it's almost instinctive imo to seek out and play with experienced players and learn from them regularly.

Long story short, the issue I'm having is that I can easily get a GG local community started, but it's difficult to keep consistent and alive if the majority is more focused on the game than being a community. It's also difficult because without experienced players in the area/state to practice with, that 1st tournament can be a brutal reality check since there wouldn't be an accurate skill gauge to reference.

These are just the issues I've encountered and have been trying to find ways to manage. I still have a lot to learn about the game myself and there are days I have found it rather daunting to have to rely on self-critique and online resources only for practice and improvement.