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Surprised at the quality of online players

Skkra

PSN: Skkra
I've recently really gotten into this game. Enough to start coming out to every tournament I can, and playing way less SF and MVC. I am shocked, however, at the general quality of the people who play this game online. I don't mean the online lag - I've actually had very good, playable connections recently. I'm just surprised at the low quality of play compared to both SF and MVC. Has anyone else noticed this?

I realize the key is certainly to make friends with people on this site and add them online. I've been taking this game more seriously and maining Ermac for all of 3 weeks now. I've played a few hundred games now, I imagine. I'll challenge someone who has played literally 1000s of games, however, and absolutely crush them with little more than fundamentals. They don't even do basic staple juggles. They won't breaker even if it could save the round - they'd rather hold it for an x-ray that they'll whiff because they do it at the most obvious possible time. When I play SF4 online, even "scrub" level players seem really solid. People are landing 2 and even 1 frame links!

Obviously, I'll make some friends on this site and play with them, but it makes trying to level up disheartening. I'm doing my best to play in real life whenever possible, but its not always doable. I'm 30, I'm a database administrator and work very, very long hours. Online is the easiest way for me to learn a matchup when I have some free time. I RARELY play anyone who plays the same character more than once or twice, and god forbid that *I* do, "you're boring!" and off they go. If I win, off they go. If I zone with Ermac, "spammer!" and off they go. I'm not even playing ranked, just casuals!

There have of course been some excellent players in there who specialize in a character and who wreck me and with whom I've had great games, it just seems incredibly few and far between compared to online for the other major fighting games. I've come to the conclusion that MK9 is probably the best fighting game out right now, and a lot of people don't realize it - I just feel that its comparatively harder to level up, from what I've seen.

I suppose this is kind of a pointless rant, but I just wanted to make an observation and get opinions.
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Premium Supporter
I guess if you're new to the MK scene it would be surprising. But it would be more surprising if the quality of competition online was even on an average level. There's just more casual players playing MK than the other fighters. Also, the casual player outnumbers the competitive one severely in MK. So those two factors means you're rarely going to run into a decent player unless you make an effort to find someone on TYM or something.
 

Reedoms

Noob
Mainly it's because of the image that MK has. It's usually seen as the casual fighter while Street Fighter is considered the "fightan game champ."

So you get a little bit more scrubs online than is normal but really you just need to find one of those rooms that doesn't have them. i.e. not the "Beginner" Rooms. Try out THEWHARF when it's up, we play casually all in good fun but are pretty solid in terms of gameplay.
 

Skkra

PSN: Skkra
Mainly it's because of the image that MK has. It's usually seen as the casual fighter while Street Fighter is considered the "fightan game champ."

So you get a little bit more scrubs online than is normal but really you just need to find one of those rooms that doesn't have them. i.e. not the "Beginner" Rooms. Try out THEWHARF when it's up, we play casually all in good fun but are pretty solid in terms of gameplay.
I'll absolutely keep my eyes open. I don't need everyone I fight to be Slips, but I always hate fighting people I know will create bad habits for me. I guess part of it is that, coming here as a longtime Tekken player and SF4/MVC3 player, the mindset of "Get in the lab. Master your basics. Dissect the game. Consciously try to level up" is standard to me.

Thanks for making that point, Juggernaut. I didn't really think about it that way, and yes, I'm new to competitive MK. NEC was my first MK tournament. It's a shame that more people don't see just how solid, unique, fun and fair this game is. Hell, it's basically the only competitive fight out right now that doesn't include some bullshit comeback mechanic!