ReveLAtions 2011 Results

[Mike]

ok, kinda late to post, but i really wanna ask, why didnt you guys use the Ratio System at Revelations?
also in the future there will be more major tournaments when the console version will be out, is there any plan to put the Ratio System in the KOF Rule Book?

[Kane317]

ok, kinda late to post, but i really wanna ask, why didnt you guys use the Ratio System at Revelations?
also in the future there will be more major tournaments when the console version will be out, is there any plan to put the Ratio System in the KOF Rule Book?

Most major tournaments will not implement ratio parameters.  Maybe local smaller ones but that's about it.

[Mike]

thats too bad, would've been better with a ratio system, not so much tier w*******

[Ash Riot]

That's the reality of competitive fighting games.  There are people who will run top tier and counter pick, to maximize their chances of winning a tournament;  I wish people wouldn't have to do such things, but it is what it is.  Even games that are supposedly very balanced have their share of bad matchups or some number of characters that have an edge over the rest of the roster.  I don't agree with a ratio system either, because that's just trying to get around the problem instead of dealing with it directly in some way.

[nilcam]

thats too bad, would've been better with a ratio system, not so much tier w*******

The ratio system was created to encourage more variety in character selection. Despite the lack of the ratio system, I felt there was a good amount of variety in the matches. It was also pretty awesome seeing someone win the tournament using characters like King.

[omegaryuji]

From the 2002UM wiki (bolding added by me):

Chibayuko, Japan Ratio/Point List

【5】 K', Nameless, Kasumi

【4】 King, Kula, Andy, EX Robert, Orochi Chris, Benimaru, Yuri, Hinako, Heidern

【3】 Bao, Jhun, Mature,　Lin, Chris, Ryo, Kusanagi, Foxy, Daimon

【2】 Iori, Orochi Shermie, Choi, Yamazaki, EX Takuma,　Mai,　Seth, Leona, Clark, Kyo, Terry, B. Mary,　Kyo-2, Kim, Xiangfei, Joe

【1】 Shingo, Kensou, EX Kensou, Takuma, Ralf, Robert, Billy, Yashiro, Orochi Yashiro, Chin, Angel, Shermie, Vice, Athena, Ramon, Whip　

【0】 May Lee, Maxima, Chang, Kyo-1, Vanessa

From this post by Dark Geese (bolding added by me):

S Class:
Geese, K', Kasumi, Angel, King, Nameless, Jhun, EX Takuma

A Class:
Yuri, Iori, Takuma, Heidern, Robert/EX, Leona, Goenitz, Ryo, Clark, Billy, Mature, Choi, Bao, Whip, O.Chris, Hinako, Benimaru, O.Yashiro, Andy, May Lee

B Class:
Athena, Mai, Kim, Daimon, Kyo, Shingo, Kyo-2, Kusanagi, Seth, Mary

Mid Tier:
Vanessa (Highly damaging level ones off a guardcrush, overhead, or low up to 50% damage in addition to being able to face King, Jhun and Kasumi in the top tier) + the rest of the cast

Bottom Tier:
EX Kensou, Chin

Ratios =/= tiers.  Not to mention that ratios should be customized for the local players, anyway.

[Dark Geese]

People also need to realize that tiers are going to be different in different regions (sure there are going to be a given 2-3 (possibly 4 or 5) characters everyone agrees on in a given tier class). So I have a solution for everyone since this is part of what I am doing-

Stop limiting yourself to only the "Big Whigs" or big names/countries playing KOF! Start actually doing your own proper research (whether that be translating bbs's, traveling or whatever) instead of just only relying on what you see in match videos! I've said this for many years, but the reason you see a lot of these characters used all the time is because you aren't making the effort needed to see what else is out there!  Just the simple fact that you all see posted the Juarez, Mexico 2002 UM Tier List I posted up should show you all the need to "Think outside the box."

So if you are tired of just seeing K', Raiden, Nameless, etc, then stop watching ONLY those matches that have them! Yes I know those matches are "easier" to find because they are "Big Names" like A-Cho, California, even MY CHANNEL (hence I use my channel to show different parts of the world like coming up Peru for example), but you have to do your own research in order to see these things!

-DG

[THE ANSWER]

From the 2002UM wiki (bolding added by me):

Chibayuko, Japan Ratio/Point List

【5】 K', Nameless, Kasumi

【4】 King, Kula, Andy, EX Robert, Orochi Chris, Benimaru, Yuri, Hinako, Heidern

【3】 Bao, Jhun, Mature,　Lin, Chris, Ryo, Kusanagi, Foxy, Daimon

【2】 Iori, Orochi Shermie, Choi, Yamazaki, EX Takuma,　Mai,　Seth, Leona, Clark, Kyo, Terry, B. Mary,　Kyo-2, Kim, Xiangfei, Joe

【1】 Shingo, Kensou, EX Kensou, Takuma, Ralf, Robert, Billy, Yashiro, Orochi Yashiro, Chin, Angel, Shermie, Vice, Athena, Ramon, Whip　

【0】 May Lee, Maxima, Chang, Kyo-1, Vanessa

From this post by Dark Geese (bolding added by me):

S Class:
Geese, K', Kasumi, Angel, King, Nameless, Jhun, EX Takuma

A Class:
Yuri, Iori, Takuma, Heidern, Robert/EX, Leona, Goenitz, Ryo, Clark, Billy, Mature, Choi, Bao, Whip, O.Chris, Hinako, Benimaru, O.Yashiro, Andy, May Lee

B Class:
Athena, Mai, Kim, Daimon, Kyo, Shingo, Kyo-2, Kusanagi, Seth, Mary

Mid Tier:
Vanessa (Highly damaging level ones off a guardcrush, overhead, or low up to 50% damage in addition to being able to face King, Jhun and Kasumi in the top tier) + the rest of the cast

Bottom Tier:
EX Kensou, Chin

Ratios =/= tiers.  Not to mention that ratios should be customized for the local players, anyway.

Interesting comparison, I'm still on the fence about different regions have different tiers. I think that high tier characters will be high tier characters here and everywhere, however like DG said different regions might spend the time to completely learn their characters and this is how they are able to take mid low tier characters to a higher tiers.

I personally feel like the Japanese go the easy way by only picking characters like K', Raiden, Shen and in a year after console is released they are not going to be able to keep up with other regions such as Mexico. I am disappointed that this is happening because it kinda makes their arguments and tier lists less valid. Like how can they say Robert is bottom tier when they haven't used him a single day in their lives.

Agree or disagree is just my point of view, what do you guys think?

[omegaryuji]

Interesting comparison, I'm still on the fence about different regions have different tiers. I think that high tier characters will be high tier characters here and everywhere, however like DG said different regions might spend the time to completely learn their characters and this is how they are able to take mid low tier characters to a higher tiers.

Characters that are obviously strong (eg. XIII Raiden or 2002UM Kasumi) are going to be high on tier list no matter what.  When it comes to characters who aren't so clearly strong or weak, though, I think there are a few factors:

• Skill level of players.  Someone like Mr.KOF could likely beast on people with XIII Goro, even though he's supposed to be at the bottom of the tier lists, just because he's such a good player.
• Character knowledge.  I know 2002UM Angel and Jhun in the hands of a good player are very strong.  I also know that my 2002UM Angel and Jhun are bottom tier.
• Match up knowledge.  As much as Kane argues against match ups being important in XIII, he also said himself that some characters like Chin will destroy people who don't know how to fight them.
• Player tendencies.  Do they like to rushdown, grapple, zone, turtle, etc.?  This will obviously effect how well they can play a given character, especially in high-stress situations where personal tendencies can overpower conscious thought.

Aside from the first point, the rest can change a lot depending on where you are, especially for newer games like XIII that haven't been around long enough for knowledge to become more global (compared to something like original 98).

I personally feel like the Japanese go the easy way by only picking characters like K', Raiden, Shen and in a year after console is released they are not going to be able to keep up with other regions such as Mexico. I am disappointed that this is happening because it kinda makes their arguments and tier lists less valid. Like how can they say Robert is bottom tier when they haven't used him a single day in their lives.

Agree or disagree is just my point of view, what do you guys think?

Tier lists and arguments are almost always going to be colored by some personal bias (excepting obvious stuff).  That just sort of happens with things that are opinions *laughs* .  I was on the fence about making my previous post for exactly that reason (who's to say that Juarez players aren't neglecting some other high tier secret?), but Angel being ratio 1 is so mind-boggling to me that I figured the point would stand.  Frankly, complaining about tier whoring or using tiers as an excuse for losing is something that I've never understood.  Both players can pick anyone they want.  Not fond of people frequently using 2-3 characters?  Learn the match up and beat them.

Lack of knowledge/experience about other characters will definitely come back to hurt the Japanese if they're completely ignoring some characters (isn't this kind of what happened with Hummer at the KOF Cup, where Mexican players were much more experienced with Angel?).  Learning the strong characters first is fine for starting out ahead, but over time, with any fighting game, top players should be learning the entire cast unless they want to risk getting blown up by some "low tier" character.

[Dark Geese]

Oscar- Judging from talking to Hummer, I am more inclined to believe what you say. I believe a certain amount of characters regardless of Regional tier listing are gonna be pretty much universal top tier in a game- K' in 13 and 2k2UM, Raiden, KGO in KOFXI, Geese/Zero in SvC Chaos, Kim in NGBC, etc etc. What is going to vary is going to be the other characters that are not in that universal tier list per country because certain countries will put more time to learn other characters than others thus tapping into their full potential when other countries will not tap those characters to their full potential.

Now not choosing to stereotype anyone, when I do The KOF Cup 2012 next year in Japan I will address all of this so that we can see why these people choose not to do such things. But validating a little of what Oscar is saying is this right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Ki5Y5C5Wo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF_Bt2DmBu4

Notice how Hummer is saying even in 2002 that the Japanese players CAN'T DO STOMP CANCEL CONSISTENTLY! Yes that's right he is saying that they simply cannot even do Stomp Cancel with Kim consistently so they don't use it! They play in simpler terms/fashions!

Also I can show a link where Hummer states that he is the only May Lee Player in Japan and there are 3 Angels in Japan, therefore another common theme here is that if the character is difficult or requires hard work to use, most of the Japanese do not use them, where in contrast- in Mexico in this same video Bart states that 80% of Mexican players know how to use Angel and May Lee, characters which are hard  to use, but top tier when played at their maximum or near maximum potential in 2002 (Hey even I know how to play them and fight against them to a degree because well, everyone can play them!).

Here is that video right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZFzneF8WDY

Hummer finally got to play against other players in Mexico that were using tougher characters and it was catching him off guard and he even said in the interview with Andres after he lost 10-4 that Andres knew how to fight Angel and May Lee very well, and this is again because 80% of Mexico knows how to use these particular characters so of course they will have exposure vs. them. But Hummer said in Japan most players use the following in 2002:

Kim, Billy, Choi, Leona, Kula, Athena, Whip and some Ioris. Those are the most of the characters used in Japan with Team Japan being KBC (Kim-Billy-Choi) so of course Hummer would fare better against Mexican players who used Kim-Billy on their team (Skato, Bart, etc)..but against Angel-May Lee, Clark and others he would have a hard time. Something else people in Juarez were exploiting at The KOF Cup was Hummer's weakness against Iori. Everyone was picking Iori vs. him because they had noticed his weakness against fighting him. Luis Cha, who's main team is Kim-Angel-May Lee, against Hummer chose Iori-Angel-May Lee because he knew Hummer's weakness against Iori.


Here is the post interview with Andres where Hummer talks about Andres being exposed to Angel May Lee...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kxztq-qUGM

So yeah people basically in a nutshell, I've been telling people all the time, what you don't know can and will hurt you. You can be the best player in your country with a given amount of characters, but it will be a certain style and/or certain characters used that you are not accustomed to that will more than likely cost you in international tournaments.

But this is why to me international tournaments are the cream of the crop and are my #1 focus. I welcome learning new styles seeing how different people play in different countries and cities because there is so much to learn in a given game the more time passes by.

In regards to what omegaryuji is saying about people complaining about tiers etc, I don't have the patience for that either because more than likely the person that is complaining about tiers:
1. Is not well travelled around the world
2. Has not done enough research to truly discover ways to get around these characters (i.e traveling etc)
3. Only watches match videos from "certain prominent regions only"
4. All of the above

So I don't pay this any mind because I know they are very much ignorant to many things that I have stated in this post alone. Trying to convince them otherwise is like talking to a brick wall, until they actually leave their bubble they simply won't grasp what you are saying.

That's my $2 and 50 cents.

[THE ANSWER]

And to bring things to a more current time, when Kunio came over to play at Alex's Arcade he was shocked at how easily Mr.KOF was able to beat him and in occasions OCV him with Terry because he says that Terry is consider low tier in Japan and nobody uses him. I'm not talking about 3 or 5 games, he lost 20+ straight games to Mr.KOF using Terry.

After my first post I exchanged a few messages with Dune and asked him why don't Japanese players make a gentlemen's agreement and stop using K', Raiden and Shen? he said that a lot of Japanese players use those characters and sometimes they shout "Daaaaaaa!!!" which I guess that means boo for them. To me this is a good sign because they are aware that they are abusing those characters but their ambition to get a quick win blinds them in the long term.

[omegaryuji]

You know, I never really thought about character-selection trends before (aside from lamenting the lack of O. Yashiro, Jhun, and Leona in Japanese 2002UM videos), but now that you guys point it out, it's pretty disappointing.  I mean, in AH3, BBCS2, GGAC, VSav, and even HnK (where people like to say that Toki [far and away the best character] is 2 tiers higher than anyone else), I see videos from Japan of players using most if not all of the cast at a high level.  It's a letdown that the Japanese KOF community would be so much more inclined to just flock to relatively simple high tier characters.

Not that I'm trying to single out Japanese players, of course, but it's just a surprise considering all of the other games where they tend to show more character-love and dedication to learning how to maximize their potential.

[Dark Geese]

And to bring things to a more current time, when Kunio came over to play at Alex's Arcade he was shocked at how easily Mr.KOF was able to beat him and in occasions OCV him with Terry because he says that Terry is consider low tier in Japan and nobody uses him. I'm not talking about 3 or 5 games, he lost 20+ straight games to Mr.KOF using Terry.

After my first post I exchanged a few messages with Dune and asked him why don't Japanese players make a gentlemen's agreement and stop using K', Raiden and Shen? he said that a lot of Japanese players use those characters and sometimes they shout "Daaaaaaa!!!" which I guess that means boo for them. To me this is a good sign because they are aware that they are abusing those characters but their ambition to get a quick win blinds them in the long term.

I could see this because he didn't get any exposure to Terry because no one used him in Japan, so though I wasn't at the tournament, if I were to make a safe bet (like I did saying Kunio would make top 4 at the tournament) I would say that John used this to his advantage and picked Terry vs. him in the tournament at a given point....

And that's fair game!

So you say it's dissapointing Oscar how the Japanese are performing overall and how that discredits the tier lists they make, to me it's only disappointing if you put them in a very high place/pedestal!!! To me it's not disappointing because it supports what I've believed all along, that there is skill all over the world, not centralized to one particular region, and that one region is not the all being all knowing in all things video games though they may have been the source of the creation of the game!!!

Japan can learn as much from Mexico as Mexico can from Japan (give or say may not necessarily be the case in 2002 lol but we will see lol).

You know, I never really thought about character-selection trends before (aside from lamenting the lack of O. Yashiro, Jhun, and Leona in Japanese 2002UM videos), but now that you guys point it out, it's pretty disappointing.  I mean, in AH3, BBCS2, GGAC, VSav, and even HnK (where people like to say that Toki [far and away the best character] is 2 tiers higher than anyone else), I see videos from Japan of players using most if not all of the cast at a high level.  It's a letdown that the Japanese KOF community would be so much more inclined to just flock to relatively simple high tier characters.

Not that I'm trying to single out Japanese players, of course, but it's just a surprise considering all of the other games where they tend to show more character-love and dedication to learning how to maximize their potential.

Well the only reason Japanese per se are getting "singled out" is because of the almost Miami Heat style hype that they've been getting in everything simply because of their success in a few games in EVO, SBO, Duelling the KOF etc, when people again fail to realize that those tournaments STILL are only catered to specific regions and do not include other regions!  Thus what happens is again this creates tunnel vision, and an absurd amount of hype and fanboyism that makes people "mystified" by the Japanese style of play when hopefully I have cracked that mystique (as well as No. 17's visit to both Mexico and the USA) to show that they are human players just like the rest of us, and not necessarily "The Best in the World."

Something Mr. KOF told me when I was in California recently reminds me of something Arturo told me when I was in NYC in 2005-

"It's really, really hard to be #1."

Yes it is, #1 in the world is very very difficult because of these very things that we are both talking about, there are many players out there that we do not know about so being #1 in the world is a very very difficult feat to achieve. So since that is the case what do people do? They overgeneralize to one or a few regions not taking into account others that have been less explored...

When it's those very countries/regions overlooked that could very well supercede the ones we deem "The Best."

But with that said I continue to try for #1, because you know what they say, if you shoot for the stars, you may not reach the stars, but you will be amongst the clouds...

-DG

[Kane317]

Good discussion, but WHY is this in the results thread again?

[Dark Geese]

Good discussion, but WHY is this in the results thread again?

It is related to KOF13 and ReveLAtions, I mean after all it's discussion related to B.A.L.A. winning with King and Vice vs. Shen, Raiden, and other top tier characters that we commonly see used a lot, so it's related to people basically needing to open their minds and realize that there is a lot more than just the top characters used in Japan... and that it is also best for people to learn the game not the tiers, because if you just learn the "Tiers" from one region or a small amount of characters, people that know THE GAME can take advantage of what you do not know.

Also that players in the USA and Japan are notorious for "just learning The Tiers not the game." Take for example KGO all day long in KOFXI in both Japan (Hummer was playing KGO in KOFXI training mode yes he was!) and the USA, and various other examples that suggest the USA outside of a few regions simply does not have its own identity, it simply just X-copies what it sees Japan do on videos or other "prominent players" what they do.