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Skullbats EU PC

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Weekly reminder to watch in 720p for the 60fps experience.
 
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As a memo, daylight saving time started the past night for most EU players, what with moving your clocks one hour forward and all.
Regardless, Skullbats will start (tonight and all following weeks) at the same local time for you as it did last week, and all weeks before that.

That is, unless you're from Russia, Belarus or Iceland (or some other country that I could but hopefully didn't miss), in which case the starting time might deviate by 1 hour.
To be on the safe side, check out the event page for tonight's tournament to see what time it will start for you specifically.
 
6th week of season 5 finished!

RESULTS: http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeupcs5w6

1st - Meiynas (@Meiynas)
2nd - Isacae (@IsaVulpes)
3rd - SillyOldDragon
1. Sanji
2. SillyOldDragon
3. zeknife
4. Muro
5. Dragon-M
5. Meiynas
7. Darren20500
7. Kuroonehalf
RANK: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MIkRLLyG6_1VteviyAHeGQIFEh4PGdwJHT-jqiWMCzc/

Feel free to share match recordings below.
Also, tune in next week for the last regular tournament before season finals!
 
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Weekly reminder to watch in 720p for the 60fps experience.
By the way, I noticed I'm the only EU player sharing Skullbats videos for the last 2 months or so. If you'd like to record and/or share videos but are unsure how to do it on the technical side, feel free to hit me up. I don't bite + I'll help as much I can, just give me a shout.
 
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I would like to be able to record my matches but I don't think I have the external hardware for it.
 
Darren20500 said:
I would like to be able to record my matches but I don't think I have the external hardware for it.
You could try out OBS (freeware) if your computer/laptop is good for streaming. You also don't have to stream online. You could play online matches and just record to your hard drive.
 
Indeed, you don't need any external hardware. I use OBS to record myself, it's is a free, fairly intuitive program that you can download at http://obsproject.com/.
I used to stream matches live on Twitch and keep recordings there, then switched to recording matches on the hard drive and uploading it to Youtube later. OBS can be used for either/both.
 
What do you use for editing if anyting?
 
I use Sony Vegas Pro to cut the start and end of the recording, basically removing any non-content before and after the set proper. Same thing can be done with a free program like Windows Movie Maker. That or timing your start/end recording right before/after the match if one doesn't want to edit it.

I don't recommend using the Youtube feature that also enables trimming a video like that. Not if you're recording in 60fps, anyway. While it does the job, it forces 30fps for trimmed videos, for some reason.
 
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Weekly reminder to watch in 720p for the 60fps experience.
 
Lenny reigns victorious.
 
WHAT:
The season finale will be a streamed double-elimination tournament, seeded by rank in the season standing.

TIME:
This Sunday (12-04-2015), starting at 7:00pm BST/8.00pm CEST/9.00pm EEST (=standard Skullbats starting time).

STREAM:
The top8 finals will be streamed live at www.twitch.tv/stopmurotime, in 360p60fps quality, with commentary from @Yallus and @Muro.

RECORDINGS:
@Meiynas, who will also be in the lobby, will record all the matches in glorious 1080p60fps and later upload the recordings to his Youtube channel for dem full HD archives.

BRACKET LINK:
http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeupcs5top8
 
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Would the commentary be posted to Youtube?
 
<720p videos exported to Youtube lose their 60fps and are downgraded to 30fps, which is not fun at all.

That said, I'll keep the stream in a permanent highlight on Twitch, so it will definitely be saved and available to watch anytime after the event.
 
Skullbats EU PC Season 5 top8 - RESULTS

1st: @Meiynas
2nd: @zeknife
3rd: @DragonM
4th: @Sanji
5th: @Kuroonehalf and @Muro
7th: @Darren20500 and @SillyOldDragon

Bracket: http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeupcs5top8

Congratulations to @Meiynas for taking over the title of Skullbats EU Champion and good games to all participating players!
Also, thanks to @Yallus for commentating with me and to @Meiynas for recording the matches so that we can have HD archives in the form of a Youtube playlist a bit later.
Shoutouts to @Woofly and @Alex12898 who showed us a nice showcase FT5 beta set right after grand finals.
And last but not least, thanks to everyone who dropped in to watch! Hope you had a fun evening.

1080p60fps recordings should be on Youtube soon-ish, expect @Meiynas posting them when they're ready.

The tournament's stream archive with commentary is saved in the Twitch highlight below:
http://www.twitch.tv/stopmurotime/c/6528216

Skullbats EU PC season 6 will as start at the usual time next Sunday (19-04-2015), which should be two days after Beowulf and beta gameplay changes hit retail. Yay! Git hype.
 
I think it is pretty apparent that a lot of the better players have lost interest in the current state of EU Skullbats
I've discussed this with a few people and come up with some suggestions that would serve to make the event more appealing to experienced players, without turning away less experienced ones.

  1. A bit more enforced/strict rules on connection quality. Currently it's not technically against the rules to knowingly show up with a universally terrible connection and get free wins (This has actually happened, albeit not recently.) Not much needs to actually change with the state of the rules, but the players need to know that they shouldn't be participating if their connection doesn't look reliable enough at the moment.
    This can be hard to enforce without things getting dragged out every time someone complains about lag, but if someone does show up with an unserviceable connection they really shouldn't be staying for long. Cases like these aren't common but they sure are a problem when they happen! Reset your router and blow your game cartridge before the thing starts if that helps, I guess.

  2. A point system that is more weighted towards the upper placements, based on how well one actually ranks in the current top 8. Showing up three times and going 7-0 is surely more indicative of top-8 status than playing every week but only ever getting 3 wins.
    Of course, people should be encouraged to play every week, but some people know they can't always make it and might abstain from the entire event because it seems like playing every week is an obligation.
    @IsaVulpes provided me with a fairly standard point distribution:
    1st: 10
    2nd: 8
    3rd: 6
    4th: 4
    5-6: 3
    7-8: 2
    9+: 1
    I applied this system to some older tournament results and found that they serve pretty well, the result being that those who do well but can't make it every week are placed slightly higher, and people who play every week but consistently perform mediocrely are placed slightly lower.
    The minimum 1 point for participation should only apply for people who actually play through the whole thing (Not playing to the end will always mean 0 points) which should be a more reasonable expectation given the following proposition.

  3. A stricter time limit on being present at the start of a round, and on reporting the result of any given round. I'm guilty of dragging things out myself by playing extra matches because I, ironically, expect there to be delays. If people are automatically given a loss for not being present after x minutes of round start, and a draw for when a result isn't reported fast enough, every tournament would progress at a much more predictable pace.
    An FT2 can take over 10 minutes if it's a close set and each round runs close to the time limit, so maybe 15 minutes total for reporting your result? Ideally most rounds would take far less time than this.
    I believe the majority of long delays are from people arriving late, so if they are given an auto-loss for arriving later than say, 5 minutes after round start, most of the unexpected delays should be culled.

    Indeed, the purpose of these changes aren't to restrict the round times to exactly this much (Most rounds do currently take much less than 15 minutes on average) but to get rid of exceptional delays and to emphasize that everyone should be trying to keep the tournament moving. No extra rounds because you think you got done fast, no slacking with reporting results.

  4. Let people play beta in top 8 if they want. Ideally the whole event would be beta only, there aren't any stone age console-standards to conform to or anything, but I guess not everyone can be expected to keep up with two sometimes radically different versions of the game. Beta in top 8 though, there's no reason to disallow that if the players are okay with it.
  5. Unban Alex.
  6. Alex has to not be a jerk.
 
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Interesting issues were touched here. I can only hope that regulars will not be discouraged by the length of the posts/replies and will instead take their time to read and reply as well. The more opinions on these points I receive the better.
zeknife said:
1. A bit more enforced/strict rules on connection quality. Currently it's not technically against the rules to knowingly show up with a universally terrible connection and get free wins (This has actually happened, albeit not recently.) Not much needs to actually change with the state of the rules, but the players need to know that they shouldn't be participating if their connection doesn't look reliable enough at the moment.
This can be hard to enforce without things getting dragged out every time someone complains about lag, but if someone does show up with an unserviceable connection they really shouldn't be staying for long. Cases like these aren't common but they sure are a problem when they happen! Reset your router and blow your game cartridge before the thing starts if that helps, I guess.
Rule or not, this is already happening. When someone has a noticeably bad connection and people bring this up in groupchat or in a PM to me, that person is on observation in the next round. If the situation convincingly persists in the next round, confirming the problem is on that person's side, he receives a loss in that round no matter the set result and is disqualified from that evening's event.

Off the top of my head, in the last season a "red light" situation like that happened at least twice. First time the person with a bad connection lost his second match anyway and forfeited from the event due to the connection, the second the player managed to fix his connection after a dodgy previous round and was allowed to stay.

zeknife said:
2. A point system that is more weighted towards the upper placements, based on how well one actually ranks in the current top 8. Showing up three times and going 7-0 is surely more indicative of top-8 status than playing every week but only ever getting 3 wins.
Of course, people should be encouraged to play every week, but some people know they can't always make it and might abstain from the entire event because it seems like playing every week is an obligation.
@IsaVulpes provided me with a fairly standard point distribution:
1st: 10
2nd: 8
3rd: 6
4th: 4
5-6: 3
7-8: 2
9+: 1
I applied this system to some older tournament results and found that they serve pretty well, the result being that those who do well but can't make it every week are placed slightly higher, and people who play every week but consistently perform mediocrely are placed slightly lower.
The minimum 1 point for participation should only apply for people who actually play through the whole thing (Not playing to the end will always mean 0 points) which should be a more reasonable expectation given the following proposition.
The season + point per win system is indeed meant to achieve two goals: 1) selecting 8 best/most dedicated players of the season based on a resultant of how good they score in weeklies and how frequently they participate and 2) encourage people to participate regularly. In result rewarding both regularity and result per event.

That said, the score system looks interesting. As it is brought up right before the next season's start, we might try it out this season. After the season is over, attendance numbers and players qualified for top8 can be compared between season 5 and 6 to conclude which system appears to work better for encouraging players of all levels to participate frequently.

The matter to consider is how many points to give players for which place. I'd like to know how standard the above point distribution system is, i.e. where is/was it used so far. @IsaVulpes?

zeknife said:
3. A stricter time limit on being present at the start of a round, and on reporting the result of any given round. I'm guilty of dragging things out myself by playing extra matches because I, ironically, expect there to be delays. If people are automatically given a loss for not being present after x minutes of round start, and a draw for when a result isn't reported fast enough, every tournament would progress at a much more predictable pace.
An FT2 can take over 10 minutes if it's a close set and each round runs close to the time limit, so maybe 15 minutes total for reporting your result? Ideally most rounds would take far less time than this.
I believe the majority of long delays are from people arriving late, so if they are given an auto-loss for arriving later than say, 5 minutes after round start, most of the unexpected delays should be culled.

Indeed, the purpose of these changes aren't to restrict the round times to exactly this much (Most rounds do currently take much less than 15 minutes on average) but to get rid of exceptional delays and to emphasize that everyone should be trying to keep the tournament moving. No extra rounds because you think you got done fast, no slacking with reporting results.
While it could be done, I'm not convinced if it's really a problem that bothers regulars enough to require stricter rule enforcing. In the last half year I think I recall one situation where unexpected difficulties were so piled up, it made the tournament go on for 2 hours (a situation I recall as it was most inconvenient for me at that particular time as well). Other than that, just about all tournaments last 1,5 hours. Sometimes 10 minutes less, rarely up to 10 minutes more. Is that broken enough to require fixing?
zeknife said:
4. Let people play beta in top 8 if they want. Ideally the whole event would be beta only, there aren't any stone age console-standards to conform to or anything, but I guess not everyone can be expected to keep up with two sometimes radically different versions of the game. Beta in top 8 though, there's no reason to disallow that if the players are okay with it.
I do not agree with this, for a number of reasons.

First of all, constantly switching between retail and beta in a stream causes commotion and makes the event drag on. Both players need to agree on their preferred version, inform the organiser about it, all 4-5 people (two commentators, a potential third person recording in HD and the two players) have to switch versions, wait for the lobby to be created, join, wait for everyone else to understand the situation that's going on and also join. It can take noticeable time, and if done every other match thorough the finals, it would make the event provide the same amount of matches while taking way longer.

That said, for organisational reasons my opinion is that it's best to keep season finals in a single lobby + in a single version. Retail is the default version here, for the same reason it's the default in Swiss weeklies. Beta can change fast, introducing occasionally quite radical experiments. I won't oblige anyone to keep up with a game version that updates once a week or more. One that can very well introduce a change that noticeably affects someone play style a day before the event (with the standard "Salty! on Friday - Steam update on Saturday - finals on Friday" scheme).

Possible exception: If all 8 qualified players unanimously tell me they are fine with playing in beta before the tournament, the above problem is non-existent and the finals can be done in beta.

...if beta lobbies won't be as unstable as they are now. I cannot pinpoint what is causing this as I recall Mike saying retail and beta lobby code is meant to be the same, but from my observation beta lobbies tend to be much more problematic than retail ones. This is from both personal experience, from the experience of players I regularly talk with, and from hosting Skullbats where I see that if there are two players who haven't started their set yet because they can't connect each other, it's usually the two players who are trying to get a beta lobby going.

The last thing we want is one of the 3 spectators (streamer, co-commentator, HD recorder) disconnecting mid-match and killing everyone's enthusiasm. The finals are a show after all, and as such avoiding time-wasting and performance-diminishing risks is key.
zeknife said:
Unban Alex.
Alex has to not be a jerk.
How serious is this suggestion meant to be.
 
zeknife said:
I think it is pretty apparent that a lot of the better players have lost interest in the current state of EU Skullbats
I've discussed this with a few people and come up with some suggestions that would serve to make the event more appealing to experienced players, without turning away less experienced ones.


I don't think the "experienced players" in question lost interest in EU Skullbats wholly because of connection issues, time delays, beta/retail conflicts or points systems. They (and I) lost interest because there seemed to be little competitive spirit and drive to improve amongst most players playing in the weeklies. The result was a boring and tiresome experience which almost turned the weeklies into an obligation rather than a fun activity. Ideally all players would be playing hard and to win, so people can improve and get better at the game, but that simply wasn't the case. You can see people who got similar amounts of wins per week throughout entire seasons (including yourself, muro) which shouldn't really be happening given that you have an entire week to improve and bolster your play until the next tournament. I downtalked the EU playerbase once, and that was concering this apparent complacency that some players carry, or their unwillingness to learn.

There have been dominant players in these tournaments for multiple seasons now, e.g. Mr Peck and Zeknife (and Woofly when he actually plays) who have no trouble going 7-0 when putting in a little effort. While winning is an enjoyable activity, winning without effort is not.

Who knows, perhaps the weeklies are full of budding new players with great potential. This general downtalk of the EU playerbase is in retrospect (although some players still haven't changed)
 
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Alex12898 said:
I don't think the "experienced players" in question lost interest in EU Skullbats wholly because of connection issues, time delays, beta/retail conflicts or points systems. They (and I) lost interest because there seemed to be little competitive spirit and drive to improve amongst most players playing in the weeklies. The result was a boring and tiresome experience which almost turned the weeklies into an obligation rather than a fun activity.
To be honest it really does all boil down to this, it is how I feel at very least. I think you (@Muro) may remember me losing my temper and saying something along these lines in Skullbats chat room some time ago and the majority of people were not interested or strongly opposed what I was trying to say. However, I don't mind players being less experienced than others but Skullbats does feel like a very casual event with no real drive to improve from the vast majority and if that is what Skullbats is, that is great for the players who enjoy that! However I won't enter, that isn't the reason I play Skullgirls and it isn't the reason I would enter Skullbats. I do however like the sound of the changes Zeknife proposes but that won't change the fact that Skullbats just isn't something that I find very interesting.

I tried really hard to not sound elitist here because that isn't what I am trying to convey......I hope it worked.
 
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Woofly said:
To be honest it really does all boil down to this, it is how I feel at very least. I think you (@Muro) may remember me losing my temper and saying something along these lines in Skullbats chat room some time ago and the majority of people were not interested or strongly opposed what I was trying to say. However, I don't mind players being less experienced than others but Skullbats does feel like a very casual event with no real drive to improve from the vast majority and if that is what Skullbats is, that is great for the players who enjoy that! However I won't enter, that isn't the reason I play Skullgirls and it isn't the reason I would enter Skullbats. I do however like the sound of the changes Zeknife proposes but that won't change the fact that Skullbats just isn't something that I find very interesting.

I tried really hard to not sound elitist here because that isn't what I am trying to convey......I hope it worked.
You already know this, but I feel the exact same way.

When I started playing Skullgirls I was *awful*. Here's how bad I was after playing the game every single day for 3 months (I was a Filia/Double main):


When I started going to the London offline vanilla SG weeklies with Woofly, Chucat, Howtoread etc, I wasn't much better. But after each tournament I'd put in as much effort as I could to improve so everyone could see a noticeable difference in my play the next week. Most importantly, I never wanted to come back the next week and lose to the same thing as last time. When EU Skullbats first started (on PS3) I treated them the same way; as a way of testing everything I'd learned in training mode and casual sets that week, and figuring out what I needed to learn the next week. I don't think I was the only one doing any of this either; Woofly and Howtoread put a bunch of effort into improving at the London weeklies, and quite a few of the UK anime players were doing their fair share of lab work between Sundays for Skullbats.

The current EU PC Skullbats are nothing like this. It feels like half of the people who turn up haven't played the game since the previous Sunday, they seem to not care if they win or lose, and they have the exact same gaping obvious holes in their gameplay week after week after week that they don't care about fixing even when people explain exactly how to do so (e.g. Muro refusing to even try to learn real combos). There are plenty of exceptions of course, but not enough to stop the overall experience from feeling like a chore.

Sorry for being so down on the whole thing, and it isn't my intention to call out EU players for being bad or anything, but the feel of the current EU Skullbats is so unbelievably far off from how it used to be in the vanilla/SDE days that I don't even know how to begin fixing it.
 
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Mr Peck is flying halfway across the world to gain match up experience, case IN* point.

P.S. God damn you zeknife
 
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Since you want opinions I might aswell share mine, gonna refer to the suggestions as "suggestion 1, 2" etc though to make sure the post isn't another massive post.

Suggestion 1: I haven't seen many problems with this before personally and since you say it already is being worked on Muro then it's good.
A thing I would like to mention anyway is that you could take notes on who have been lagging before and kind of give them a "warning" of sort, so if they come back an upcoming week, then you already have your eyes on them and if they are laggy from the beginning then try to confirm it at round 1 and remove them from the tournament. Preferably it could be tested beforehand in future tournaments if that person lags or not to even stop them from entering round 1 if they do indeed have bad connection.

Suggestion 2: Personally I have always disliked the current point system, since it's according to me atleast too easy to get many points from being active rather than being good.
Now it's hard to make a point system that would be fair that didn't force people to be active, but the one mentioned in the post Zeknife wrote is a step in the right direction.

Suggestion 4: I'd say this one is hard, since as Muro said it's supposed to be a show and a show should have as few interruptions as possible. Though since there's always people who want to play it on the beta then you could check beforehand what people want and if a majority wants the beta then see if the rest is okay with it.
I don't know but personally I don't feel it being so serious that I couldn't play on a version I am less used to, for example I myself have played people on the beta before on request during tournaments even though I am playing only retail myself. This have of course been done in the weekly tournaments since I haven't been in top 8, so some people might think the top 8 is too serious to play beta unlike the weekly tournaments when they are used to retail, but what do I know?
I think the best solution would be to see as I mentioned how big the interest to play beta is, and if a minority doesn't want it then make them motivate why not, and if there are no real reasons behind it but just excuses to not play a slightly different version then listen to the majority.


Also about the more experienced players leaving, I myself even as I am far from one of them feel that what Alex, Woofly and Mr.Peck talked about is the reason. It's bound to happen when the challenge isn't there, it's not very fun playing against players far from your skill level and since this is happening it's understandable that the most experienced players will lose interest. Especially when people don't really try to improve but just come back every tournament just to hang out and have a bit of fun.
Some people try to improve and fight their way up there, I myself for example really feel like I do, just like Mr.Peck said he did. I started playing not very long ago and I was horrible at the game, I scored really mediocre the first time I dared to enter and because of this I decided to practice like crazy to actually be able to come back and show the people who beat me that I was doing my best to not be just another less skilled player. Setting up personal goals along the way really helps you improve, but not everyone does that.
Sadly, once again as Mr.Peck said this doesn't feel like it's the case with most players in the EU Skullbats, and thus it becomes very casual.
I would really like to see more people getting motivated to improve and put in some effort, but it would be impossible to motivate everyone and because of that I doubt it will really become anything much more than a rather casual tournament.
 
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Mr Peck said:
But after each tournament I'd put in as much effort as I could to improve so everyone could see a noticeable difference in my play the next week. Most importantly, I never wanted to come back the next week and lose to the same thing as last time.

If only more players were like you. Being unable to touch a player and then grinding to the point where you can finally beat them... there isn't much like it
 
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I'll go ahead and say that none of the questions in this post are rhetorical. I'd really like to hear what are good ideas to change the status quo towards something EU's top level players would enjoy.
Alex12898 said:
They (and I) lost interest because there seemed to be little competitive spirit and drive to improve amongst most players playing in the weeklies. The result was a boring and tiresome experience which almost turned the weeklies into an obligation rather than a fun activity. Ideally all players would be playing hard and to win, so people can improve and get better at the game, but that simply wasn't the case.
What suggestion do you have to change this situation, though?
Woofly said:
However, I don't mind players being less experienced than others but Skullbats does feel like a very casual event with no real drive to improve from the vast majority and if that is what Skullbats is, that is great for the players who enjoy that! However I won't enter, that isn't the reason I play Skullgirls and it isn't the reason I would enter Skullbats. I do however like the sound of the changes Zeknife proposes but that won't change the fact that Skullbats just isn't something that I find very interesting.
Similar question: is there something that can be done to make Skullbats interesting for you again? Aside from changing the nature and attitude/approach of the EU players we have. While I know that would work, it's not something that can be realistically done.
Mr Peck said:
It feels like half of the people who turn up haven't played the game since the previous Sunday, they seem to not care if they win or lose, and they have the exact same gaping obvious holes in their gameplay week after week after week that they don't care about fixing even when people explain exactly how to do so. There are plenty of exceptions of course, but not enough to stop the overall experience from feeling like a chore.
If there are plenty of exceptions though, how many more are needed to make things interesting enough? I'm asking as someone who enjoys participating in weekly events, yet sees experienced players who aren't, and is wondering what more do they/you need. If you, IsaVulpes, zeknife and Alex-minus-two-months participate, if dragonos didn't fly to Japan just last week or so, if Woofly is talked into playing and someone goes ahead and convinces Thai Ming to try out Skullbats, that is/was already 7 players on a similar-ish high level that can* be found in weeklies.

*(Or could - if they all simply talked with each other and agreed to participate on this Sunday, and then maybe another, and another. Not doing this reminds me of a situation I see offline tournaments often experience, which is players saying "I'll play if more players enter". If everyone shares this approach, then no one ever enters.)

You mentioned vanilla/SDE Skullbats in PS3, but those had 7-8 total players on average in the 14 weeks it took place. I'd be surprised if it had more hard-working players than the current PC edition has (or can have if everyone simply shows up). How many more would be needed to make it interesting, realistically considering EU's not-super-big supply of highly competitive fighting game players? And what was the excuse for these mentioned players not getting together in the first place, if that is what was needed all along? I admittedly didn't do it, but that's no excuse for you (a plural you) to not have done it. Skullbats is a community project, and community doesn't mean "one person does all the work while everyone else profits".

That was for the objective official point of view. Decided to separate a more personal reply in a second post below.
 
So, I heard this a lot over the last months, and this is as good a time to reply as any.
Alex12898 said:
You can see people who got similar amounts of wins per week throughout entire seasons (including yourself, muro)
Mr Peck said:
] It feels like half of the people who turn up haven't played the game since the previous Sunday, they seem to not care if they win or lose, and they have the exact same gaping obvious holes in their gameplay week after week after week that they don't care about fixing even when people explain exactly how to do so (e.g. Muro refusing to even try to learn real combos).
Now, were these call-outs to me in particular to make a point necessary. Because I don't think they were necessary.

I reckon they might have been included to bring attention that the tournament organiser does not have the desired competitive spirit top players expect. Here's the thing though, and it was never a secret: As much as I enjoy playing and organising events for Skullgirls, fighting games aren't my primary video game genre of choice. I'm not hosting Skullbats because I asked to. I'm hosting it because when everyone else in charge abandoned the idea, it was either me taking over or having no Skullbats at all.

I have no less life nor obligations than anyone else, and for the last half year I organised my Sundays (and therefore weekends, and therefore weeks) around being available to host Skullbats. I never asked for forbearance nor complained about this because I considered it an acceptable price for giving Europe nice things. I'm tired because who wouldn't be, and sure I'd hand it over to someone willing and reliable enough to keep it running and not make it dead within two months, were that an option. There are never any volunteers though, only very good players who are comfortable enough to sit down and criticize, but not invested enough to actually take on organising the whole thing.

I'm not against constructive criticism, it's very welcome and helps shape Skullbats into what works best for the time being. All I ask however is that the next time anyone wants to mention specifically me and my approach towards playing and improving in Skullgirls to make a point about the current state of Skullbats, do reconsider.
 
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I called you out in particular because it's the first example that popped into my head of someone actually admitting they don't care about working on a huge, easy to fix hole in their gameplay, as opposed to someone who obviously never practices or tries to improve but gets defensive when called out on it. I could have called out zeknife instead for throwing out safe DHCs at every opportunity instead of practising his blocking because he thinks learning to block is irrelevant if he can somehow learn the perfect neutral game instead, but that problem hasn't been around for anywhere near as long and for all I know he might have changed his mind about it recently. On top of that, he went from doing awful at Skullbats to being one of the best players in Europe so it would be really petty to call him out on something like that.

It was nothing to do with you being the organiser of Skullbats, so sorry that it came off that way. I know how much running Skullbats sucks and I really appreciate the fact that you run it, even though its current incarnation isn't for me.
 
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Two posts, to be a bit less of a mess.

First notion: When I don't enter SBats, it's generally because I.. forgot about it / don't have time / noticed my connection is being spazzy / don't feel like playing SG;
None of which any rule could change. I don't ..really.. care about whether my opponents there "got better since last week" or not.
If I want to play serious business practice, I will go for sets, not FT2s. Sure, it would be nice if I could meet new good players in SB, but the lack of that doesn't really change anything?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Muro said:
Rule or not, this is already happening. When someone has a noticeably bad connection and people bring this up in groupchat or in a PM to me, that person is on observation in the next round. If the situation convincingly persists in the next round, confirming the problem is on that person's side, he receives a loss in that round no matter the set result and is disqualified from that evening's event.
I indeed witnessed something like this happening before, the question always being whether it is *sufficiently* enforced.

Meiynas is a very basic example for someone who lags all the time with all people and nobody really seems to care?
He won against MrPeck in the last seasons Top8, then 2 games later got dropped due to severe lag issues.
Ok, he got kicked, but who is now putting MrPeck -who presumably lost precisely due to these connectivity issues- back into the winner's bracket? This essentially "killed the tournament"!
I hear his connection this time around in the Top8 wasn't much better?! zeknife reported that Meiynas showed 160ms in the Lobby. That's not an EU connection.

The last time I entered Skullbats, I got to fight him - and noted that I have a better matches with Fizzxwizz (who is located on the US Westcoast).
He won that week 7-0; the only thing I took from our set was "Ok, I will just forfeit straightaway in the future when I get paired vs him".
I convincingly beat people weaker than me and won vs "the challenge" aka knife, but still only got 2nd 'due to outside factors'. That IS a bit depressing.

I don't know, keep a list of people who are known to have awful connections and force them to do the [Run-Cmd-ping google.com -n 50] stuff prior to the tournament,
where if they go over say 75 you keep an eye on them and if they go over say 125 they just aren't allowed to enter? Something perhaps. Don't know.
I just ran this, and got the following result: Minimum: 14ms, Maximum: 25ms, Average: 16ms. My connection isn't particularly exceptionally good.

The matter to consider is how many points to give players for which place. I'd like to know how standard the above point distribution system is, i.e. where is/was it used so far. @IsaVulpes?
Uh, I don't really have any specific thing in mind; it just kinda is the standard distribution used for various small scale Grand Slam whatever type tournaments (the big ones tend to operate on powers of 2 and give like, 128 points for a tourney win, but that's a bit of a hassle).
The original being 10/7/5/3/1/0 depending on placement, but then I added +1pt for participation and left the first place at 10 Pts because I don't like 11.

But yes of course, various different point distributions are possible. Also common is something akin to 15/10/5/0, or 32/24/16/12/8/4/2/1 or whatever. I just took the easiest one.
What I wanted to avoid is TOO MUCH of a focus on 1st place - it should be notable, but not notable enough that someone who gets 1st place once-twice has a free ticket into Top8 right here.

A thing I feel zeknife didn't mention strongly enough is that -regardless whether this point change makes it through or not- if someone leaves prior to the end of the tournament, they should always be awarded zero points.
Regardless whether they win two matches due to severe lag then get kicked, or RQ in the fourth round, or whatever else, none of this should ever result in them getting points towards the Top8 - one could even construct a scenario where a guy needs a further 3 points to get a guaranteed spot in Top8, enters Sbats, gets 3 wins, then quits "cus I reached my goal". You don't want this.

While it could be done, I'm not convinced if it's really a problem that bothers regulars enough to require stricter rule enforcing. In the last half year I think I recall one situation where unexpected difficulties were so piled up, it made the tournament go on for 2 hours (a situation I recall as it was most inconvenient for me at that particular time as well). Other than that, just about all tournaments last 1,5 hours. Sometimes 10 minutes less, rarely up to 10 minutes more. Is that broken enough to require fixing?
It definitely is something that bothers me, but I have no idea how you would rewrite the rules to work out better here (as I don't know how long a match can feasibly take, and sometimes there are "outside factors"), nor am I sure that it's a good idea in general - a tournament that has 20 entrants but "takes too long" is better than one where everything is pinpoint on time but you alienated all but 6 players by doing so.

Some people will finish a match late and then really have to go pee so they can't start again instantly. Sometimes Lobbies are a hassle and don't let players join up. Sometimes one player experiences sudden issues with his connection and goes to reset his router to attempt fixing it.
I understand all of this, and thus I am not sure how to handle it - but I am still dumbfounded every time I win 2-1 with every game getting close to timeout, go to enter my result and notice my match is the 3rd one that finished, with 5 others still running. This can't be "I had to pee" every time!

A base thing I noticed is that zeknife will always continue playing after his FT2 is done, and then when the next round starts he doesn't just controller drop and tell his respective opponent to perform a Doublesnap combo on him - but just continues playing; which introduces a severe delay on when both he+his opponent can enter their next match.
But knife isn't the only one who always takes too long, and in fact usually even though he arrived 2 minutes late to a round, he won't be anywhere close to the last one finishing their match. I really don't know what makes this have so much downtime, always.

I do not agree with this, for a number of reasons.
As sad as that makes me, you are correct on all accounts

Will anyone get offended if I [potentially of course, no clue whether I even make it next season!] drop out of the T8 due to that, though?
Especially if Robo turns out to be something I enjoy, I really wouldn't want to spend 8(?) weeks scoring well in Skullbats, just to be forced to play an entirely different team in the Top8;
dig out my 2 months unplayed Bella which I don't really enjoy, and have difficulties adjusting to Parasoul without her <ominous Beta change>, etc.
It wouldn't really represent me as a player, nor the team with which I originally qualified.

I want to say if Retail is forced for T8, it should also be forced for the individual weeks, but no
No, that is a very bad idea. Logical, but please don't.

How serious is this suggestion meant to be.
I believe he is very serious on this

I can't really comment, as I have no idea what Alex did when for how often and against how many warnings
And I do trust your judgment, as you certainly don't strike me as a person who will nilly willy ban people for a minor transgression
But I do think "indefinite banning" may be too harsh a punishment 'no matter what' he did
If he goes to you and honestly apologizes for misbehaviour while really really promising that he won't do it again, he could be pardoned?
Then again I can't really see Alex doing any of this, so .. shrug
 
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I disagree with a lot of things!

-- Apologies in advance if this post is kind of a mess, I will likely edit it a bunch after looking over it.
My thoughts were kind of all over the place and this is a discussion with 5 people so I am afraid I fandangled myself somewhere~
E: Also, this is kind of a book. Don't read if you can't stand too many words!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Re: People suck and don't want to improve.

There really isn't much you can do about that, at all.
Banning people from the tournament because they are too casual sounds so bad I don't even want to write it
Not everyone has the time,commitment,focus,whatever to improve as much as they can; and even the ones who do "take videogames seriously" may not take *SG* seriously.
You could change the tourney format to Double Elim from Swiss, which would "weed out" the bad players quickly, but I don't think this is in any way desirable

Really, the most basic solution to "I don't want to fight bad players who don't improve" is to have better numbers.
In a week where say, Alex Knife MrPeck Woofly and I enter, each of us has 4/7 rounds "fighting people whom I enjoy fighting against" (to whatever degree.. nowadays I don't really feel that is the case anymore, but that is not the topic here/ ) already.
For the remaining 3 rounds, it is not too unlikely that one will meet someone who has a decent count of points and thus isn't "too awful", or that in general you just get lucky and run into "one of the plenty of exceptions" who DO try to improve.

If that isn't enough for you, well, there is a 2nd "competitive" thing around here, namely the Danisen league, where you -thanks to this recent rule change!- can play any set length (so not just bleh FT2) against anyone you like (so no need to fight the nonimproving casuals) without any of the downtime/lag issues/etc.
Curiously, the most vocal complainer about how shitty Skullbats is -aka Alex- isn't registered for Danisen at all, Woofly also refuses to play in it, Peck and Knife shot up to Dan3 and are now kinda stuck up there "alone" (hey, they COULD play each other though!), and the 2nd most matches played are by Muro who everyone here whines about. Heh.

-----

A bonus note is that it may be difficult to actually notice improvement, because you improve as well!
And since you are these super competitive guys who already know how to use Training Mode well or what to look for or what exactly the holes in their gameplan are etc, and have an easier time fixing them.
I played a guy in a set and went 20-11. Two weeks later I played him again and went 30-2. He didn't get worse - he actually did some things that he didn't do in a previous set. But I made a small leap in understanding some things, which made me a good bit stronger.

Sometimes people improve but it is not apparent *to you*. There is nothing the average EU player can practice that will make them suddenly win against Woofly. But perhaps they drill different ways of approaching vs Peacock, so they don't lose free against Muro anymore? Perhaps they don't want to lose free against Eliza anymore, so they learn the timing to throw-punish Axe, which isn't any easy.. but how am I going to notice that when I fight against them? etc

-----

MrPeck says "Look how shit I was, and since then I got sooooo much better" but look at SBats EU Week 1:
http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeu1 he got 2nd to Woofly, not exactly the worst a player ever was
Week2: http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeu2 5-0 first place (Woofly didn't enter)

Or an even better example:
Week5: http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeu5 The ranks 4-11 don't play the game anymore, but you can just exchange them for "other people" and you'd have a likely result for SB EU #587!
Did I really get any better at this game? I still lose against the same people as 2 years ago, and just beat "the rest" (actually I now lose against potentially MORE guys). I should go and hang my casual bitchass on a doorknob or something.
Oh yeah, I play Fortune for 2(?) months now and my Headless is still somewhere between "Mash some buttons" and "shit, head is off, QCB P; get it back on!"; I can just 'handle' this laziness because I play this game for some 2-3 years and got decent enough to fight for a win despite such an egregious handicap.

-----

"It was much better in the SDE days" sounds a bit glorified to me? There too, the top say 5 players (Woof, MrPeck, me, DxE, Notorious-KIT, perhaps I forgot someone) tried to improve, while others took breaks / quit the game / entered every week but never got notably better (Cybermanworf I think had that problem most notably), and the EU community at large was just dead.

The difference there was just that those Top5 players entered the event every week, while now its zeknife entering and the rest lamenting - in large part due to the infrastructure of PS3 vs PC.
My PC is just running 24/7 and I constantly see who is online when and can spend 5 seconds to shoot them a message whether they want to play or not. While waiting, I can do p.much whatever since hey, a PC is amazing!
My PS3 gets plugged in to play and then when it's running I kind of have to pray that someone I would like to play is also online, and then I need to spend a minute writing them a message, and while waiting for a response I can do just about nothing! That's not quite as fun, so having a set date when you knew people would get together and play was extremely helpful in setting up matches.

This isn't really the same anymore; I can play whomever I want, whenever I want, for as long as I want; so it leaves the lingering question of
"If I only want to play 3 people in SBats, why would I accept all this downtime + 4 rounds vs people I don't care about, just to get a bunch of FT2s - when instead I could play a long set with any of them?"
and that is in the end what causes SBats to be unappealing (which brings me back to the aforementioned Danisen league, whose format I prefer but which is kinda not used at all :( ).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I do agree that it would be cool if EU had more players that try to win harder. But all of this seems kinda backwards~

As mentioned before, I carry my own share of laziness - be that after 3 years of playing I still have not a single combo that utilizes an assist, or that 99% of my resets are either bad crossunders or "frame advantage into high/low/throw", or that I am uninterested in practicing punishes for certain things (to this day I have not practiced punishing Pillar xx Bikes, I just kinda started doing it in matches and sometimes it works), or that I still have massive issues in every aspect of my execution because god no I am not going to spend 3 hours every day practicing IADs/Tearlinks in the corner/whatever, or that me killing a character means that I am going to lose a character because my incoming mixup is "let yourself get hit", or etc countless other hassles which are more or less easily fixable but I just don't want to put the time into it.
Sometimes I just want to play the game rather than blarging in Training Mode, some things are conscious decisions (I'd rather not improve my offence to the point where "one touch means you lose a character" with invisible mixups where I don't know which side they hit myself, before I understand the neutral game to some degree - AS IT STANDS, I feel like my neutral is ass and I get "all my wins" from heavy momentum due to my reset game, and thats with a shit offence. The more time I spend in neutral, the longer I get to practice it etc), bla bla

In the end, what makes people (or at least me) improve is:
1) Performing under expectation (Losing against a player whom I perceive as worse than myself; doing much worse than I should against someone better than myself)
2) Being shown "what is possible" (Seeing some cool piece of tech, or just fighting someone much better and they completely destroy me due to X)
3) Identification of a basic fault, followed by fixing it (This one is easy, eg I fight a guy who mashes Gregor, notice I have no idea how to punish it, practice that)
4) Having a goal to strive for (For example: win a tournament, win a set against a good player, play a game without dropping a combo, get a sub 50, ..)
5) Blabla you get the idea, I prolly forgot countless points, but the rough groundwork is there
With #3 tying heavily into #1, because they usually go hand in hand (I lose against 'a worse player' because all he does is LnL, and I don't know how to beat it)

So what does this have to do with anything? This:
People here look at [person] and go "Wow this guy is super stupid, I don't want to fight him he's just being retarded, this guy just autopilots a lot of shit while mashing dp assist, yeah no"; and then they don't enter Skullbats.
And then Mr.[person] gets first place (performs OVER expectation), doesn't meet a single opponent who does something he doesn't know, doesn't get punished for any of his faults (how would he identify any then?), attained his goal (winning Skullbats), ..
Man, he sure is gonna have a lot of drive to improve now?! Three weeks later the same people see [person] -who still wins everything and thus doesn't see any wrong in what he is doing-, notice he hasn't improved, and complain that EU sucks.
.. Shrug

Some people just won't improve, because they don't take the game seriously, or don't have the time to do so. That's life.
Some people won't improve because they are completely dumbfuck retarded (a certain EU Fortune player comes to mind..). Can't do much about those, but there aren't too many of these luckily.
Some people WOULD improve *but don't*, because they get no incentive to do so - as "the EU top players" don't come out and don't play them. Things.

The multiple-times mentioned Muro (who indeed has super ass combos and I wish he at least learned some conversion out of Bella airthrow beyond j2MP xx Dynamo) used to be a p.stupid player who'd just mash tag at every opportunity. Like, you would land one hit, do some heavy frontload damage, pause. Tag comes; punish with heavy frontload damage, pause. Next tag comes, punish. Repeat.
That got a lot lot better! Because he noticed at some point - hey, when I do this against someone not-awful, I am just giving away free wins; and while pressing Tag is fun, giving away free wins isn't that much fun.
So hey, the guy DOES get better! It may take a while as he is less concerned about all the things than 'we' are, but he does figure out things he should stop doing, and stops doing them. However, I WILL take the wild guess that he *would still* mash tag everywhere if all he ever fought were people that got tagged (he-he) by it. Because, why not?

Muro "doesn't get better at combos", because he doesn't enjoy those, and in the end fun is what we want from a videogame.
Woofly played without a DP assist for ages because he thought it was too dumb, MrPeck still refuses to play keepaway Peacock, I am not going to pick up Eliza, whatever. All of these in the end are self-imposed limiters because the game is more fun for us that way.
Why is our "I don't give a shit about this despite knowing it would get me more wins, because I have no interest in playing that way" okay, while he shall burn in hell for it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bottom Line:

- The problems that "the top players" seem to have with Skullbats are either unsolvable (can't force people to try to get better - and no, I don't think this was ever really different) or self-created (if all of the "top players" entered, there would be no problem; but they don't, so there is), or both (people won't get better if they don't get to fight good opponents)
- Those same problems are sort-of solved in Danisen, but that has lukewarm reception for some reason (Woofles will get so anger at me over this!)
- The perceived "non-improvement" may be overdone due to being based on your own perception of "what a player should be able to do", ignoring differing circumstances (first FG, ..) and how far away from their skill level you are (it is very hard to perceive whether a player got better when they start at scoring 2-50 vs you and then a few weeks later score 6-50; they "got 3x better" but to you it still just looks impossibly bad), as well as what their 'work focus' is going to be (it "makes more sense" for a low-mid tier player to practice things which are going to help him beat other low-mid tier players, than something which helps vs a toptier player whom he won't beat anyhow)

The most basic question is perhaps:
Hi @zeknife, do you think you would be as good as you are now if Skullbats always had "no good players",
and instead of MrPeck/Izzmo/Woofly, your 'goal to strive for' had been someone like Meiynas?

If not -and I would think the answer is no- then SBats does its work.
Perhaps not for everybody, or perhaps just for the minority.
Certainly we won't have a new guy who turns his 1-6 score into a 6-1 one within 2 months pop up every few weeks,
But even more certainly so we won't have that happen at all ever if all the good players abstain from the event.*

*Or it might happen but said player will still be bad; you get the picture

P.S.: Kinda none of this really is about the rule changes zeknife proposed, heh.
 
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IsaVulpes said:
MrPeck says "Look how shit I was, and since then I got sooooo much better" but look at SBats EU Week 1:
http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeu1 he got 2nd to Woofly, not exactly the worst a player ever was
Week2: http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeu2 5-0 first place (Woofly didn't enter)
Skullbats EU week 1 was 10 months after I started playing in offline weeklies.

IsaVulpes said:
Or an even better example:
Week5: http://skullbatseu.challonge.com/sbeu5 The ranks 4-11 don't play the game anymore, but you can just exchange them for "other people" and you'd have a likely result for SB EU #587!
Ranks 4-7 are all general UK 'anime game' players; DxE played at an offline SG tournament with us last October, and Angel/LSX/Frost are all still active in their respective scenes. Even though none of them really play SG any more, they were all putting serious effort in at Skullbats that week and trying really hard to improve and learn matchups. Then again, it's much easier for me to know that they were trying hard to learn and improve because me and Woofly were in a Skype call with Angel/LSX/Frost for the entirety of that week's Skullbats and were giving them tips and answering their questions as they played. Maybe we should do that with other people in the current Skullbats?
 
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Mr Peck said:
Skullbats EU week 1 was 10 months after I started playing in offline weeklies.
You get the point though, do you not!
The people who you beat at SBEU week 1 would probably also have lost against the 10 months earlier you?
Since they also would have had 10 months less practice.

When I started playing Vanilla (offline only, because online didn't work) I got timeouts in every game,
because I didn't know what an IAD was or how this launcher business works and all
- So every game was like, Valentine mirror
Poking with sHK/sHP
When up close, either cLK into cMK sHKx3, or Throw into cLK cMK sHKx3
With occasional topclass reset sHKx2 xx Command Grab thrown in
~ Fun times ~
I think you would have even won harder then against me than you do now!

I am not disputing that you got better, I am against the notion that one can use "You lose against the same people as 3 months ago" as evidence for "You haven't improved"
Because what if those people also got better? Then we are back at Square 1.
I ran into a certain Sonicfox towards the end of the SDE days (I think? Perhaps it was on PC, but I do think it was PS3), who would completely destroy me with Filia
I played him at the end of this year when my PC was broken, and hey I got destroyed still
And if I played him now right this moment, I would.. lose (and most likely badly, at that)!
That doesn't mean I didn't get any better - he just also improved.
 
Yeah, I get your point. I think it's dumb that Alex called out people for having the same score each week, which is why I talked about it in terms of making the same mistakes each week instead. And if it's any consolation, someone hit me with that exact Valentine reset a couple of weeks ago and I still feel like an idiot for it.
 
I'm slow at reading, but I got to the end of your post!

IsaVulpes said:
Muro doesn't "Get better at combos", because he doesn't enjoy those, and in the end fun is what we want from a videogame.
Woofly played without a DP assist for ages because he thought it was too dumb, MrPeck still refuses to play keepaway Peacock, I am not going to pick up Eliza, whatever. All of these in the end are self-imposed limiters because the game is more fun for us that way.
I feel like my Peacock today is very different to my Peacock 3 months ago. I run a heavily chip-based duo with cerecopter assist and I've been working hard on taking far fewer unnecessary risks than I used to. Even though I still try to get up close to my opponent, instead of going for risky mixups I'd rather lock them in place from 1/3 of a screen away and start dealing 1000 chip damage at a time with copter and bombs. Even though I tried (and failed) to make my previous strategy work for a very long time, I adjusted my playstyle to fit the character and my Peacock is much stronger for it.

On a similar note, I'm probably going to learn some new characters and switch up my team after Combo Breaker to make it more effective at this sort of thing. Here are some boring basic notes about it that I made recently:

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s328...93a4c1531778/d78a4c9a4ada89cec1db8a6fb34663b8

So your point still stands, but I'm honestly still trying to find a team that best suits my strengths as a player.
 
Muro said:
What suggestion do you have to change this situation, though?

How do you increase competitive spirit and drive to improve? You improve your own play and surpass enough people to give others an good example, as well as a goal for them to work towards beating. If you manage to at least go even in a set against a higher skilled player, there is the satisfaction of solid progress which casual play does not produce. Of course, and I stress this, this means that EU improving its playerbase is a communal effort. With more people improving there can be a greater player "ecosystem" (which just means a bunch of right-minded individuals) for other players to take advantage of. Having a wide range of skill in the playerbase gives any inspiring individual an easy roster of players to beat to progress and improve. Every player needs to be trying hard in-game and want to improve + win. This is just the base requirement, but it is so important. Players who do not place importance on getting better don't contribute much to the playerbase, and are easily overtaken by players who want to get better. From what I experienced in Skullbats EU lots of players started to accept their losses against me (and some others) instead of actually doing something about it, which was dismaying and was no fun for either player. I remember people voicing their thoughts in the chat, like "oh no, it's MR PECK, I'm done!" which was the wrong way to look at the situation. Instead of avoiding good players, people should seek them out and play them in sets to learn new things (and get their ass beat, since that helps you get better) If I had to cherrypick, I'd call out Meiynas who hasn't even bothered asking me once for a game in months, the last time I fought him I beat his ass in the BnB SG tourney. This avoidance of challenge is the worst thing possible for the playerbase. People need to be beat up in sets more. They need to be schooled. The problem is that players only really improve if they want to. Perhaps they didn't believe they can improve, and that EU's "top players" became that good by magic. The reality is that you get good by investing time and effort, as well as having a thirst to improve. So far I have seen some players with the right attitude, or discovered they did when they actually beat me. I had no idea Drewbie practiced hard to improve, and I remember being beat by him in some past skullbats which really surprised me.

Muro said:
I reckon they might have been included to bring attention that the tournament organiser does not have the desired competitive spirit top players expect. Here's the thing though, and it was never a secret: As much as I enjoy playing and organising events for Skullgirls, fighting games aren't my primary video game genre of choice. I'm not hosting Skullbats because I asked to. I'm hosting it because when everyone else in charge abandoned the idea, it was either me taking over or having no Skullbats at all.

I have no less life nor obligations than anyone else, and for the last half year I organised my Sundays (and therefore weekends, and therefore weeks) around being available to host Skullbats. I never asked for forbearance nor complained about this because I considered it an acceptable price for giving Europe nice things. I'm tired because who wouldn't be, and sure I'd hand it over to someone willing and reliable enough to keep it running and not make it dead within two months, were that an option. There are never any volunteers though, only very good players who are comfortable enough to sit down and criticize, but not invested enough to actually take on organising the whole thing.

I'm not against constructive criticism, it's very welcome and helps shape Skullbats into what works best for the time being. All I ask however is that the next time anyone wants to mention specifically me and my approach towards playing and improving in Skullgirls to make a point about the current state of Skullbats, do reconsider.

Whether you choose to do this or not, you have an impact on the playerbase like anyone else, and you are a part of the community like anyone else. We already discussed this some time ago and you seemed content with EU's skill level, which appalled me. When someone like this is holding the weekly tourneys, something is wrong. Make no mistake, your dedication to hosting all this time is not lost on me, but it comes off as dutiful and with the ultimate purpose of "giving Europe nice things" when really the tournaments could be so much more than just a nice thing. Passing the torch to a player with a better focus on improving may honestly be a step in the right direction. With this the overall mood of the weeklies could be changed from casual routine to that of encouragement and healthy competition. I already wanted Zeknife to start his own tournaments in his EU SG Improvement group, but perhaps this is as good a solution.

On a side note... I am trying to improve the playerbase, and I know others that do the same. Through giving advice to players, playing people when asked, making guides... etc.
 
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I sent this in Steam but I shall just post it here, for it is OnTopic (well, OnTopic in a super OffTopic discussion, but better than nothing)!

Mr Peck said:
I feel like my Peacock today is very different to my Peacock 3 months ago.
I know your Peacock is different, and it certainly got better.
Woofly also now runs DP assist (sometimes, at least)!
I am just saying that we all got our cruxes and things we dont care about or consciously don't do

My entire gameplan is really just one big hole and I have no idea how I even get wins with anything!

I feel Muro kind of "got the short end of the stick" in that the things he really doesn't want to touch are combos and resets, which are kind of vital
But his overall playstyle certainly did/does change, and to the better
Like, you yourself said he could be "really good", if only he bothered doing some damage with his stuff
But that is only cus his neutral is p.decent at this point and his defence is okay - neither of which he was born with

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I haven't consistently played in SBats in ever, so perhaps I am mistaken on all of it, but I do play some people sometimes in sets and I do feel they get better at some things
Slowly, and not always at the things which *I* would attempt to fix, but they do new things, or old things better

I honestly think that full retards like [you know who] are in the minority, and most people just uh, are .. not that good/experienced, so stuff takes longer for them to take in

When I look at how long it took me to get from that godawful Vanilla/SDE level to where I am now (and I am still kinda awful), it feels entirely unjustified to get "angry" at someone who doesn't suddenly win Skullbats after 6 months of playing the game
- Not everyone can do that zeknifey meteoric rise

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I think in the end it comes down to what Muro also mentioned; if "we" "just" enter, that instantly results in say 4 'good' rounds and then you'd need really bad luck for the other 3 to turn the tourney into too awful a mess~

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Alex12898 said:
If you manage to at least go even in a set against a higher skilled player, there is the satisfaction of solid progress which casual play does not produce.
It doesn't for you. It doesn't for me either. But it is INCREDIBLY conceited to presume everyone else on this planet feels the same way.
Many people don't feel a sense of "I want to get revenge for this" after getting beat down, but just a sense of "I will never play this game again".
Many people are content with playing through the Storymode on sleepwalk and then closing SG and pursuing some other hobby (bingewatching shows on Netflix, drawing pictures, going out to play football, lifting weights, whatever..).
Who are you to tell these people they are having fun "in the wrong way"?

Having a wide range of skill in the playerbase gives any inspiring individual an easy roster of players to beat to progress and improve. Every player needs to be trying hard in-game and want to improve + win. This is just the base requirement, but it is so important. Players who do not place importance on getting better don't contribute much to the playerbase, and are easily overtaken by players who want to get better.
These sentences are kind of contradicting each other?

You do ideally want a "staircase of skill", so someone new doesn't enter SkullBats and runs into 7x MrPeck in a row.
Now, if everyone has the same 'competitive drive' and time (+ability blabla) as MrPeck, everyone will be roughly that level
Hey, we just specified we don't want to have that!
The "casual players" who attained level X and are content with said level are incredibly important as stepping stones -
So that new players who are steadily improving actually get to feel just that (Hey I beat this guy whom I used to lose against! Yay!).

When someone like this is holding the weekly tourneys, something is wrong.
No

Passing the torch to a player with a better focus on improving may honestly be a step in the right direction.
No

With this the overall mood of the weeklies could be changed from casual routine to that of encouragement and healthy competition.
Lel, No.

EU SG Improvement group
Lel
 
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Muro said:
What suggestion do you have to change this situation, though?

Similar question: is there something that can be done to make Skullbats interesting for you again? Aside from changing the nature and attitude/approach of the EU players we have. While I know that would work, it's not something that can be realistically done.
No, not really which is why I am not calling for changes. I mean it kinda sucks for ME but it is what it is. If the people entering Skullbats have fun then that is great for them, let them continue to do so. I will continue to just invite people to games and maybe stream them and while I would like something more from SG (in EU) I don't see it happening.

Btw yeah, calling out names wasn't necessary. Points could (and were!) easily conveyed without it.
 
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