Tom Brady: "Winning in fighting games was more difficult in the 90s".

[spidey300]

The numbers do matter.

Yes, at EVO, you will likely have a high chance of running through weaker players before meeting really hard competition. That's the nature of EVO, as the largest open tournament that people simply attend for the EVO experience.

You also have a high chance of getting paired up against strong players early as well. There are more of them out there, and you won't always be lucky that the seeding favors you.

Ok it doesn't always correlate to harder competition. Have to sift through a 100 scrubs and then things start getting heavy at top 64-top 32. Seeding is different because there's the off chance you run into sonicfox

 

[spidey300]

Maybe, just maybe, fighting games are just... Different now. It seems so hard to compare the two because of them being two entirely different beasts. Playing online vs playing at the arcade, being able to access frame data, discuss tactics and combos online, watching top players play, etc. It's just not comparable IMO.

It's not hard to compare. Just do it with your knowledge of then and your knowledge of now. He's not completely wrong

 

[xenogorgeous]

This is so much bullshit.

Fighters were actually EASIER to play in the 90s at a competitive level as they were ALL, not just MK.. but all of them broken as fuck. MK2 has many infinites for example, and anyone that says MK9 wasn't completely broken is just kidding themselves.

The idea that fighting games are easier now is absolute rubbish.

Why do people listen to this dude?

These 1000% ..... !!!!

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Was it harder to scam people in the 90s too?

 

[AZ MotherBrain]

Ok Boomer

 

[Zer0_h0ur]

To sum up and paraphrase the argument, Tom states that "90%" of the competitive audience only played fighting games in the 90s, although I would like to see evidence for this assertion. The premise that he makes is that players currently have more "options" because of the ascension of other gaming genres such as first person shooters and certain strategy games. Evidence does support this claim, particularly the money that is involved in big tournaments in order to attract more players.

What do you guys think?

I think it's hard to understand how pervasive fighting games were amongst video game players in that time unless you actually lived it. They were orders of magnitude more popular back then so in that respect he is not wrong.

 

[HeavyNorse]

If it's easier now than in the 90's... why isn't he winning any tournaments?

 

[Marlow]

I think there's an argument to be made that it was harder to become good at fighting games in the 90's since there weren't really any tutorial modes, there wasn't a lot of online resources for combos and tech, online and practice mode wasn't really a thing. The only way to get good was to be someone who could just learn as they played, and to have a good enough local scene that you could simply play a ton and learn by going through the gauntlet.

However, I think it's for the same reason above that it's actually harder to win or be a top competitive player today compared to the 90's. Since it was harder to become good at fighting games, it meant that the pool of competitive players was much smaller. The big difference between winning and losing was mostly about who had better knowledge of the game. Nowadays though everyone knows about frames, advantage, jailing, combos, whatever. It's not about a knowledge gap, it's about a skills gap. And with so many more people playing it's more difficult to find that edge.

 

[Marlow]

This is also funny to me because the "it was harder to win in my day" argument is the exact same argument that pretty much any retired pro athlete says. Time is a flat circle.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Do you really think top players now vs top players today would be the same if MK12 was basically a revamped MK9? MK9 was much harder to be good at, execution was ridiculous and you couldn't win unless you played perfect. The execution barrier of today's games is so toned down because they HAVE TO appeal to more people or they just won't sell anything.

People aren't better for playing watered-down games of monotony.

I do, because the top players today are mostly better than they had to be back then.

This is for a few reasons:
1) Our scene has a legacy curve. We’ve been studying and breaking down these games for so long that it’s become much harder to beat our top players. Remember when Chris G used to walk in and place for free in MK9, and win Injustice majors while playing other games? When Aris used to beat everyone at WNF? When PR Rog placed at EVO? When Justin Wong was a threat early in MK9? Or Corn Footwurk placed at the first MKX major? This doesn’t happen anymore, and it’s because the collective level of NRS game knowledge and talent accrued over years is significantly higher.

2) The second reason is: Sonic Fox. Sonic has singlehandedly raised the bar for our scene as a whole, starting with IGAU (and very late MK9), and continuing into MKX. By winning so many majors for free, he forced players to level up in order to even have a chance to deal with him. The fact that, over time, Scar (MKX), Dragon, and others have had to push themselves to such a high level to compete with him has done wonders for the neutral game, fundamentals, reaction speed and reads of the best players. And now you have players like Ninjakilla who come in with that bar set from the start. It’s great.

3) The third reason is that MK9 was a young scene — at that point, much of our scene had never played a high level fighting game before. Anyone who had prior serious competitive fighting game experience, be it in Street Fighter, Tekken, DoA, or in the 3D MKs, was coming in with a major advantage, and it showed. Many people fell in love with MK9 as their first serious fighter, and the skill gap has never been bigger than it was in those first couple games.

All of this is not to disparage the top MK9 players, as they were skilled and very dedicated. They set the tone for our scene to follow. But they would no doubt have to work even harder to complete against the likes of Sonic and Ninjakilla with the level of meta knowledge and fighting game fundamentals that have become standard. It is what it is.

 

[Tony at Home]

If it's easier now than in the 90's... why isn't he winning any tournaments?

Because that would entail actually showing up to them

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I'm interested in what tom thinks about the scam artist vs cuck MU. In 2019 that shit was 10-0, was it more evenly matched in the 90s?

 

[ded]

The more competitors a game has, the more competition it has. The more competition a game has, the harder it is to win.

As 90's player, I absolutely agree on that.

 

[TomlulsBrady]

The logic that tournaments have more players therefore they're harder doesn't follow unless you can prove that in the pool of added players, a non-trivial amount of them were of the quality that matters.

Anyway the glaring flaw that I see in Tom's thought process is that he assumes the type of mind attracted to and that succeeds in the other competitive genres(fps and etc) would pick up fighters if those options didn't exist, hence him concluding that even though the tournaments were smaller, fighters netted more elite minds into their playerbase because they supposedly had no where to go. However I see no reason to think that. For all anybody knows, if fps didn't exist, the best fps people would play chess or nothing at all.

Now, I do think the elite players of 90s/2000s/today were probably all around the same quality of good, I mean there is no hard evidence that smart people today have on average better cognitively abilities or higher iqs than smart people back then. No, the type of brains that existed today existed back then too. The question/criteria should be--would someone like sonicfox have to jump thru more elite players to place today compared to the 90s/2000s.

 

[Blade4693]

But like....what is the point he is trying to make? I don't understand. Even if it were true, idk how it matters since we are no longer living in the 90s.

 

[thlityoursloat]

Was it harder to scam people in the 90s too?

Didn't reo recently announce that Tom paid back all of his dues? To reo himself and all of the people he scammed.

 

[OutworldKeith]

It’s like saying the World Series of Poker was harder to win back in the 80’s and 90’s when there were a fraction of the entrants and not nearly as good of players overall. It just isn’t true.

The more competitors a game has, the more competition it has. The more competition a game has, the harder it is to win.

That’s not an absolute. Tom’s point is level of opposition, which is always a factor.

Even at 27, I’d squash a whole school of elementary kids in a foot race lmao.

 

[xenogorgeous]

But like....what is the point he is trying to make? I don't understand. Even if it were true, idk how it matters since we are no longer living in the 90s.

the current nowadays generation of fighting game players, are way better , skilled, skillful brainy smart and creative than any pro players in the 90's decade year .... the competition today, is tough, hard, and in order to any pro player to stand out, to get highlight props as top high level player competitor is simple very difficult ..... damn, you can see that even the past MK9 generation players that came out that time , cannot put up with playing and competing toe to toe with the young generation that come out in/during MKX, or the very new ones that are now in MK11, so, you can imagine what the next MK game will demand in terms of gaming hability level ?

besides, great players as Sonic, NinjaKilla, Dragon, Scar, Deoxys, etc, are the new base model for competition standards, a level player that make competition today hard as hell to overcome with

 

[deathstroke187]

in my opinion , there is no difference between then and now. just like in sports.

Take Boxing for example. Ali or Tyson during their prime would dominate the HW division right now if there where fighting today.
Just as if you took a prime Floyd Mayweather in his prime during Ali primes would dominate welter weight.

Players are pushing the level of play in any games, not the games themself.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Didn't reo recently announce that Tom paid back all of his dues? To reo himself and all of the people he scammed.

I mean good for him but I'm still gonna make fun of it

 

[Tom Brady]

1. i never EVER stated it was "harder to win in the 90s".

2. i made a part 2

3. part 1 was more in fun for YT content

4. its tym so OBVIOUSLY only pt 1 is up and im seriously misquoted

 

[Marlow]

in my opinion , there is no difference between then and now. just like in sports.

I'm not sure that's true though. Sports have changed a lot throughout the decades. Look at the NBA, NFL, or MLB, players are much better than they used to be. Pitchers throw harder, NFL players and NBA players are getting bigger, faster, and stronger.

Or look at the Olympics. Competitive times/scores in 1990's would be much less competitive today. The person who won the silver medal in the Men's 400 would have come in 6th in 2016.

Players are pushing the level of play in any games, not the games themself.

I think this is true, but nowadays we have way more good players, thus the level of play today is much higher than it was in the past.

 

[Marlow]

1. i never EVER stated it was "harder to win in the 90s".

2. i made a part 2

3. part 1 was more in fun for YT content

4. its tym so OBVIOUSLY only pt 1 is up and im seriously misquoted

I'm sorry you were misquoted. What were you trying to say?

 

[deathstroke187]

I'm not sure that's true though. Sports have changed a lot throughout the decades. Look at the NBA, NFL, or MLB, players are much better than they used to be. Pitchers throw harder, NFL players and NBA players are getting bigger, faster, and stronger.

Or look at the Olympics. Competitive times/scores in 1990's would be much less competitive today. The person who won the silver medal in the Men's 400 would have come in 6th in 2016.



I think this is true, but nowadays we have way more good players, thus the level of play today is much higher than it was in the past.

there is where you dont get my point there is no "higher level of play" today or before. There is Phenom players in all era. Daigo,Sonicfox and now ninjakilla all in their prime could compete against each other at any timeline. Some old players even have hard time transitioning into todays games im not gona expose anyone but ive seen with my own eyes current pros saying MK11 is too hard and that they couldnt understand the neutral and mechanics in this game.

If you take Counter Strike for example , the old SK team played againts the Current SK team in a first to 3 . The old team destroyed the new team. I repeat myself, Players are pushing the level of play in any games, not the games themself. In my opinion this whole conversation is irrelevant.

 

[ExpectFlames]

WHY IS REO NOT WORKING FOR NRS? WHY IS M2DAVE NOT WORKING FOR NRS?

Well a lot of those same guys in that class actually did and work for them. Bit and even some from the newer dizzy.
Those 2 alone should have more than enough to not get where we are now, but look we are here.