#1 on Street Fighter Ranked Matches
Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 11:25AM ;)
Right now I'm #1 on the Street Fighter HD Remix leaderboards in ranked matches (Xbox 360). Ranked matches in almost every game eventually degenerate to cheaters and people who are somehow gaming the system with win-trading, but for now the top ranks do consist of legit players.
Also, as general advice to everyone, I wouldn't obsess about rank. If you start caring about it, it's really limiting. It's better to try new things, try new characters, and not worry about losing. Try to increase your actual ability this way, not an external number. When a tournament comes around (the real test), your ability will matter and your number won't.
You might be wondering which characters I played to get there. Akuma, Sagat, Honda, Bison, Vega, Blanka. In other words, over 1/3rd of the cast, ha. Weighted more toward Akuma, Sagat, Honda though.
Thanks for all the great matches everyone.
--Sirlin
Reader Comments (61)
Sirlin,
Just wondering, I know you aren't an employee of Backbone or Capcom right now, but I was wondering about the feasibility of something. With all the options you all gave us, I, and I'm sure many others, found it somewhat strange that you didn't give us an option to use the original announcer. Not that there is anything wrong with the new one but for nostalgic value it would have been cool to have had an option for the old one. Now is this something that could easily be implemented into the game if Backbone/Capcom wanted to? And if us fans begged hard enough! ;) Or would it require more trouble than it is worth?
BTW, congrats on the rank! I don't want to even imagine what your XBL message inbox looks like. haha.
Any chance we'll see you over at the PSN side? I haven't played a lot online (mostly locally with friends) but it would be nice to have a chance to play against you.
Takamura: Cammy vs. Honda. She can low strong to beat hundred hands. She can jump straight up strong to beat it (her jump straight up strong is crazily high priority, the hands are very low priority now). She can Cannon Drill repeatedly to do block damage. If she happens to get hit by hands somewhere in there, she's not nearly as bad off as before because hands do less damage. It's even somewhat reasonable to try crossup short on Honda if you knock him down. It's less bad than ST considering her ability to pressure is up, Honda's hands are worse, and his ochio throw isn't repeatable and does only half the dizzy.
Jack: no because I don't even own a PS3.
Wow. This is how much this game rocks. I have played since Tuesday, and since there was no work on account of thanksgiving, I have been pretty much been playing this game straight for 4 days. I have 1020 wins and 270 loses (the ranking system is broken but i dont care anymore).
Great game Sirlin.
I just wanted to say thank you again for hooking Blanka up. He almost feels Hyper Fightingish now. That's a good thing.
I only wish there was a way to leave a quarter match while spectating without having to sign-off.
Is the competition on X360 network "higher" than the competition on the PS3 network?
I think it´s great that Sirlin is number at this game, it means alot of things±
-The connection is so good that champion ST fighters are still the best (not random players or lag abusers)
-Sirlin not only has months more practice in SFHD, he also has years of practice in ST. If anybody else was number one, there would have to be a very odd reason (and probably something we wouldn't like)
-This proves that Sirlin knows the game he made (and defends) extremely well.
(Now I can't wait for the game to release in Europe so I can get ranked!)
Congrats Sirlin! On the high score, but more on getting the game done!
Big fan of your site, and your book!
About the notion of game designers being among the best at the games they design: HD Remix is the first game I've heard of where this is even remotely true. I remember when the top 2 TF2 teams were challenged by Valve to a 12v12. People were thinking that since 12v12 isn't a real competitive format that the teams were used to, and that Valve probably playtests regularly with those team sizes, it would at least be a close match.
Valve got decimated. It wasn't even close.
Sirlin is an exception because he became an expert at the game (hell, probably the genre) BEFORE designing it. Simply designing and playing a game a lot isn't good enough to become the best. You need to be part of the comepetitive community - there is no other way, and no other game designers have time for that.
Congrats! I would like to play against you someday :)
As a Chun-Li user, I noticed that her super does 5 hits to everyone EXCEPT to Chun-Li herself. Her super still does massive damage (6 hits) to another Chun player.
Hey Sirlin why the stupid win 100 games in ranked achievement? what a pointless shitty achievement not to mention it is reason idiots drop at the character select screen. Ranked achievements are always stupid.
The more developers that see this the better. Just look at COD4 one of the most popular games this gen and Not one ranked achievement.
Sirlin,
I've had a few matches today (Nov. 30th) when I couldn't do blanka's hop. I play blanka all the time and it's only happened twice, but It's frustraing. Everything else worked fine, but neither the old nor the new inputs worked. ??
About Valve getting decimated at TF2, I'm actually pretty surprised. We held a few informal TF2 leagues between game developer studios, and Valve steamrolled over us all - they really were pretty good at their own game. These top teams Valve played must have been very solid themselves.
Saw this last night on the leaderboards with my own eyes; too good, too good.
Like others have said, you're one of the few lead designers that is truly master of their domain. Well, you and the Tetris: The Grand Master creator guy.
Sirlin,
Awesome job with the game, first of all. One question: you mentioned cheating, what exactly are you talking about? I got trapped in a corner and thrown over and over. Is that one example, because I thought that was accepted.
I think he means stuff like exploits to get rank, or maybe special macroing controllers- stuff that isn't gameplay related.
One thing I'm curious about now though- the game when released to the wild has been found to be very buggy. How many of these glitches known about before release? (SRK forum is having a ton of coding-related complaints)
Good job Sirlin.
Just remember who gave you a few of those losses.
Kinda funny that I can have a record of 120 and 6 and im not even in the top 30 any more. Guess im just not playing enough.
CigarBoB
I never paid much attention to online rankings. ^_-
In all honesty, I've beaten everyone at least several times before and some people are immensely great, characters can be very tough but still beatable. I have barely started HD Remix during its release and my amount of time spent on playing classic ST was near 1 week. During this time playing HD Remix, I can combat most anyone with DJ with his intense pressure and frustration that he can cause opponents, causing them often to whiff Dragon punches or the like, and tick throwing like there's no tomorrow because that is one of Dee Jay's strong points. Similarly, almost every character has their elements and opportunities to strike. For people not too great or still too new to the idea of these elements, get started with somebody and just observe some opponents as you fight them and how they approach to achieve things in a match.
Personally, as you play the game more and more, (and yes, you must use Sirlin's change list as reference, it's invaluable if you want to learn to maximize a characters potential and exploit weaknesses to beat another character). This mentality of "X character is too good" will instead become "I must anticipate move Y and counter with Z tactic".
My only true gripes with the game are:
A) No ability to save replays
B) No ability to be AFK in a game room so you can merely spectate (though this is understandeable, when someone else can be playing instead, perhaps in a private session this may allow buddies to keep playing while you're away)
Don't limit yourself to the idea that these characters are too powerful and shouldn't be played in the first place, instead, open yourself up to the idea that this is a character with his or her own properties that can and or can't beat your characters, and this opponent knows how to capitalize based on this, so must you do the same. If the day ever comes that a character truly does become titled as God Tier (doubtful), at least you enjoyed the time you did playing against this character before that community announcement.
Unlike every other commenter here, I have a terrible ranking, thanks to the "win with every character" achievement starting me off at 20-40. But I still really enjoy the game, and almost every HD Remix change makes the game more interesting. (I actually find Guile's new super motion more difficult than the original.) Congratulations!
Just out of curiosity, was there a technical reason for limiting tournaments to 8 players, or would it have been out of scope for the game?
I know that the creators of Halo absolutely suck at their own game. I've seen plenty of videos to justify my opinion.