9.95
Noob
Online for fighting games may not be useless as you can get a certain level of practice, but that's about it. I can't really say more than what Shock has already said, but 2 years ago I was an online only player until I started with tournaments at Castle Golf and then eventually ECT, NEC, and so on and so forth. Now I can't stand to play online. The few times I have played online for the purpose of warming up I have been so disgusted by it... and I showed Rob what it was like and he was like, "Bro, you didn't even show 1/8th of how good you are against that scrub...."
My point of view is this... when you play primarilly online, you learn the game a different way. You train yourself to not react to opportunities that exist in the game. These opportunities exist both online and offline, however in an online scenario, they are far, FAR less safe(sometimes not even safe at all, even in the best of connections), and therefore, the player chooses to completely ignore the opportunity...even in an offline game. Ignoring that will cost you in an offline tournament. There is the point... the offline player sees these opportunities, and offline can respond to them properly, punish mistakes properly and doesn't have to adjust on the fly to different timing between different opponents with different connections. There's simply no continuity online. While playing online, an offline player sees these opportunities, just like he does when playing offline...but when he tries to react, gets punished by the online player who, in many cases, doesn't even realize that the offline player even had an opportunity because online, it's nearly impossible to react to...so the online player thinks he can do things that are safe, when in reality, not only are they not safe, but that opportunity(for the online player) shouldn't exist because the offline player(in an offline setting) would have capitalized on the initial opportunity. I know it's confusing to read at first...but it makes sense. Simply put, the online player handicaps himself by not realizing the game's full potential, his own full potential, and willingly abandons many tactics, techniques and opportunities, in many cases, simply because he doesn't even realize that they exist!
My point of view is this... when you play primarilly online, you learn the game a different way. You train yourself to not react to opportunities that exist in the game. These opportunities exist both online and offline, however in an online scenario, they are far, FAR less safe(sometimes not even safe at all, even in the best of connections), and therefore, the player chooses to completely ignore the opportunity...even in an offline game. Ignoring that will cost you in an offline tournament. There is the point... the offline player sees these opportunities, and offline can respond to them properly, punish mistakes properly and doesn't have to adjust on the fly to different timing between different opponents with different connections. There's simply no continuity online. While playing online, an offline player sees these opportunities, just like he does when playing offline...but when he tries to react, gets punished by the online player who, in many cases, doesn't even realize that the offline player even had an opportunity because online, it's nearly impossible to react to...so the online player thinks he can do things that are safe, when in reality, not only are they not safe, but that opportunity(for the online player) shouldn't exist because the offline player(in an offline setting) would have capitalized on the initial opportunity. I know it's confusing to read at first...but it makes sense. Simply put, the online player handicaps himself by not realizing the game's full potential, his own full potential, and willingly abandons many tactics, techniques and opportunities, in many cases, simply because he doesn't even realize that they exist!