Season 1 Feedback and Season 2 Poll of a VFDC-organized League

I like this idea, but I don't know if it works within the circuit. I think it would make a great series of its own though. Maybe we could even have some sort of finals. After a fixed number of FT10 we could host a final for the winner and make them champ for the year or something like that.

The only problem is that most people aren't good enough to generate any sort of hype. For this to work it would have to be the best players only.

One thing I would like to see is some sort of ranking battle where 2 really good players play it out until one of them gets promoted, but we wouldn't be able to stream it unless the players themselves had the equipment.

EDIT: Watching the stream and seeing everyone using their Christmas costumes just gave me an idea. How about if we had required costumes during certain months. For example in October you have to use halloween costumes, in December you have to use Christmas costumes.

Obviously this only applies if you have the costume packs but it might things a bit more fun. Heck, lets go all out and have some sort of judging contest where players vote on who has the best costume that month. Maybe whoever wins the most best costume of the month can get a bonus point at the end or something.

 

^^Yes in the back of my mind i was kinda hoping it would attract some of the best vf players to participate in a vfdc event again

 

I think putting the circuit on the front page is a good idea, but the match footage should be in the article. I also think it should be divided into beginner, intermediate and expert divisions, starting with a qualifying round to see who should be in which division.

I like the idea of offline tournaments being incorporated into the circuit even though I can't go to them, but I think it would be better if they were a seperate league from the online circuit.

Also the team tourneys and monthly FT10s sound interesting.

 

Do we have enough players to start dividing up the groups based on skill? I know there are more participants the E American bracket, but most of the others didn't seem to have enough to fill more than one room. More divides I think would just alienate people and reduce that feeling that it's actually a gathering - getting people together and playing each other seems more important than nursing butthurt egos or whatever. Also, isn't playing stronger players one of the best ways to improve, and isn't it a good way to judge how much your game has developed? Just playing the same par-level players is only going to result in stagnation and boredom. I find it far more fun and interested when I find Cha-mame or GT in ranked and I get to run back at them time after time, even if (and I usually don't) I don't get a single win.

The circuit seems like it should be more about getting people gathered together and meeting/playing each other than about dividing people into groups and subgroups and keeping people separated.

 

Actually, yes. I didn't really think of that.

 

Firstable, thx you akai for running those online events. It's lot of work, and everyone appreciated your dedication.. I will definitely participate in a second season, if there will be one.

Now my feedback on the first season:
PSN: I wasn't aware of all this PSN crappy DC and desynch, with AI taking over the player.... until now. just lol. Also, I feel like playing in rooms with several people makes the lag a little worse. ( both PSN & XBL ). Also, I remember I couldn't connect to unicorn cz in the room for the last PSN major, and we had to change the host to finally being able to play each other.
So much nonsense. Playing in player match should resolve the problem, and I think everyone will be honest and tell who is the winner or loser without any problem. It sucks for the stream though. All theses PSN disfunctions made everybody waste their time.

For XBL, it seems better, but slight laggy than if played individualy in player match or rank too.

Just my 2 cents.

 

For the most part, I'd agree, but there are certain disrespectful people with a disposition towards dishonesty, and if they were to compete, I would certainly want a third-party to observe.

 

Oh yeah, right, I forgot that in US, you have that fraud stormlord guy...

 

First of all, I have to thank Akai and everyone in VFDC for running and support VF Cirquit.

By participating in Season 1 ,gave me the opportunity to meet many players and learn new things. Apart from that, that's the first time I participated in a VF Tournament, which is very exciting for me.

Anyway, the connection with the majority of the players is great. The usual PSN problems such as DCs and desynch is something that cannot be avoided and it is beyond our control. Thankfully, we found a way to deal with PSN problems by playing in Player Match.

If there is a second Season, you can definitely count me in

 

If i may express one preference i would like to switch ps3 and xbox360 playing days i cannot play anymore on saturday X_x

 

I just wanted to chime in that I think including offline events would be sweet, though perhaps it would need to be a league in the same vein as ps3 vs 360 leagues. You should get more points based on how large the pool of players are, and by how strong the players in the tournament are. How strong the players are will be a metric of how highly those players tend to place in past tournaments. I could compose a makeshift formula for determining player strength. I'd make on a 9000 points is supposed to be super high level player or something like that.

In terms of the online events. I think the idea of having rooms is great, but I don't like round robin at all. You can not build any momentum and it just feels strange not getting to complete a set right then and there. I get why you choose RR, so that folks get to play a larger amount of players. However, if you made each room it's own (bracket) in a sense like pools style where you clime a ladder of 2 out of 3 set wins (single elimination, so no losers bracket). This would all be over fairly fast. Then you can have a 2nd round where the top 2 players in a set of pools form the final bracket and duke it out in the same format.

The only place where they'll be a losers bracket is to decide who gets 2nd and who gets 3rd. Top 3 will be first to 3 matches.

That's just my 2 cents on the online rule format. If we're still RRing it by playing each person once, waiting (read: getting cold), then play a bunch of other players (letting them download), then fight them again (like you're starting from square 1 again), I'll be sitting out season 2. It just doesn't feel organic to me and isn't the kind of competitive atmosphere I enjoy. I like Ladders and Brackets because it's clear who's winning, you know who you need to fight, and it's a strategic element of the game I've grown found of.

 

I think the event was great! It ran smoothly for the most part and I had a lot of fun playing in it.

I have to agree with Tricky that round robin takes a lot of the intensity out for me, however in this case I saw these tourneys as some nice evenings of VF rather than balls to the wall tournaments, so it didn't bother me that much. It's still online, so the more serious you get, the more you notice online play's drawbacks, which leads to frustration (for me).

One thing I'd like to suggest is that players purchase a mic when participating in the 360 events, since that makes things a lot more enjoyable (you also don't get the sound fadeouts).

As for team tourneys: let's do it. VF matches don't take a lot of time, so that wouldn't be an issue. It might also be a nice way to lure new players in, since I don't think any other fighting games has regular team tourneys.
The only problem might be getting the teams into rooms, that might take some extra time.

Offline events would be great.

 

Yeah, I think that, if a team-based thing were to be run, rather than trying to get all members of both teams into the room, each team could elect one representative, and then just those people would need to find a time to play, rather than having to get all 4/6/however many per team into a room.

 

^I like this

 

Akai, I already said it before but thanks for your hard work!

I liked the circuit and I would participate in a second. Maybe not in every event but in most, it depends on my bachelor thesis and stuff…
I never had an offline scene or others to play with, so I always had to play against the CPU. It was really cool playing with all of you and having something to play with others on a regular basis. This also explains why I played, well let's say, "noobish". Never had a chance to play others and improve but thanks to the circuit I found someone who helps, explains and train with me so I won't be the punching bag anymore and hopefully kick some asses in season 2

Just for the record (and because I got the feeling that I should say something to this):

I, as a beginner, never was interested in the prizes. I just wanted to play and see where I am.


For season 2: the round robin format was ok, it didn't bother me to wait for the second match. In our bracket sometimes we played it directly afterwards and sometimes after the other matches. Both were okay, If I played shitty, I had some time to come down and play better in the second match. For example: RR#6.
It would be cool if Sega updates FS and makes hyper action battle mode available in players/room matches. Those special events might be fun for RR's.
And for the DC's on PSN:

^this, with the exception that sometimes player match don't work too. Strangely enough room matches work then… (right Unicorn? )


Just my thoughts and stuff…

 

Am I the only one that likes prizes? Free stuff is good!

Another half-baked idea could be some kind of 'survival' or 'kumite' type mode. Something where one of the stronger players makes a room with 5 or 6 of the weaker players, the object being for the weaker players to try to take a match from the stronger one. In theory, it'd give the weaker players chance to get some games against a strong player, and hopefully learn some new things to improve their game. Preferably, the stronger player would have a mic so he can comment and instruct the weaker players as the matches go on (things like 'my attack there was advantage-on-guard, so try taking defensive measures' or 'you seem to be always doing X after you do Y, which is predictable - try mixing it up'). Often times, stronger players can pick up on ways for other people to improve their game.

Alternatively, we could set up 'training rooms' for specific characters. For example, Koenraku would make a room, and all the players who want to learn how to play with (or against) Kage could join, and he could take questions, showcase flowcharts, defensive options, general gameplay stuff. Someone might be wanting to know how to use Jumonji stance effectively, or deal with an opponent who evades a lot. Someone else might need to know how to fight against Kage's Shippou stance etc - and it might help a lot.

Personally, I'd be interested in learning things from Vanessa, El Blaze, and Jean experts. I often just mash against them because I don't know anything about their moves, so I fall into easy traps and fail against standard flowcharts.

Not sure if this is necessarily something the circuit would want to oversee, but it might be interesting for people.

 

Survival or Kumite sounds good.
Maybe those training rooms shouldn't be branded as VFCircuit but maybe VF<insert cool training room name>. (VFDojo??)

There's nothing wrong with prizes but it isn't the main issue why I play here. I would've joined the circuit without prizes too. If I get something, cool. But I don't mind if I come away empty-handed.

 

I find the comments from some players about how the season took too long to be puzzling. So you want to play, just... not in this format? Even after saying the prizes don't matter -- so if you miss an event and your rank drops, it shouldn't matter.... I do wish some of the better players stuck around, honestly.

I don't mind the prizes (of course I say this being nearly guaranteed of winning something :V ), but I would have played in the events regardless. I really like the idea of having scheduled times where groups of people get together and play.

Having offline events would be one of those things that would be nice in theory but a total mess in practice. This country is just too damn big.

My suggestion for a format change would be to keep the round robin format, but to break off into player rooms instead of having everyone in a room match. So for round 1 you would have A play B, C play D and E play F all in their own rooms at the same time, and they would all play X games (5? 10?). Then everyone falls back and reports, and then plays the next set of players. This would allow the format to take (roughly) the same length of time, while getting each player a lot more play time.

One other thing may be to consider widening the play areas, even with lag as being an issue. I liked the fact that on the one off-day round robin I played in, the pool of players I played against was completely different from whom I normally play in these events. I have played a fair number of people on the east coast and while the connection isn't great, it's mostly playable, and would be OK in a less serious setting.