@unofficialtoppotdoughnuts6364 this guy comments this on every video lol even on this video where im doing nothing but CRITIQUING capcom I wish i got paid by capcom to critique them lol
This video is reminding me of a story. I had grown up playing Street Fighter since 1987 in the arcade. I've never been a "good" player, but I loved Street Fighter. I was a foreign exchange student to Japan in 1994. Over the course of that year I spent maybe 200 bucks playing Street Fighter at arcades with Japanese folks. Hundreds of games, and I won maybe two matches the whole time. Now, before that experience I was below average in my area back home. After I got back nobody in my area could touch me in Street Fighter. It was amazing.
Brian is right. For the first time in 12+ years I don't really care about what is going on in the competitive scene outside of EVO and CC. There was something to be said in having the global best of the best travelling around the world hungry for points every few weeks that brought out the highest quality competition consistently and gave a better emotional payoff for both the winner and viewer. Now it's kinda meh.
It also meant most killers who already qualified at this point had to stay on their toes and keep going to torneys and doing well, or they risked getting beaten in points by other playwrs grinding more
@@ProsodiJ big facts used to be happy as hell seeing tournament now i see these no names on stage doing worst than what id do is crazy they definitely need to setup better tournament for everyone not regions some of these regions are trash
There are no more rivalries or money matches to rep a set either. That has made it less entertaining, imo as well. That has been ruined by sponsors and the social climate. I miss a little trash talk. Punk is about the only one who is still talking sht and even he is tame.
Watching this on the bus back to NYC from ECT and it’s hard to describe how a tournament hits way harder when you walk in the venue and see top international talent. Makes you more invested, inspires you, and if you go far or pull off an upset against an international juggernaut it is legitimately hype. Your pride/investment in your local scene balloons BECAUSE your people are winning against top players from other regions. There has to be a way to strike a balance that prioritizes offline international play, and creating storylines/hype from this international competition while still creating avenues for underrepresented regions to compete.
If Capcom Cup was increased to 64 players then there could potentially be up to 16 more premier spots to add to the existing 10, making 26. Or have some more super/regular regions with some more premier spots. The premier spots could be made up from a global leaderboard finalised through players attending several premiers to accrue points (like how it was pre-COVID). An entire 64 player tournament with 16 groups of 4 players (FT2), where the top 2 go through to a 32 double elimination bracket (FT2), and then at the top 16 stage, matches increase to FT3 ; would have the exact same number of matches to play as the current entire 48 tournament format (8 groups of 6 FT2 > top 16 FT3). So both tournament formats have 142 matches in total. Therefore Capcom might as well do a 64 player tournament instead of 48. From this my suggestion for spots would be: > 1 spot - Previous winner (seeded) > 22 spots - from a global leaderboard (all seeded) > 1 spot - LCQ (seeded) > 28 spots - 14 Super regions (6 seeds from winners of 6 top regions) > 12 spots - 12 Regular regions I think this solution would bring back the excitement of CPT and have the best players qualify whilst still allowing for good players from all over the world from obscure regions who can’t afford to travel. EDIT: Apologies for the long comment, I’m just passionate about this situation as well.
Personally I thought the most recent Capcom Cup was the best ever, super hype throughout, but yeah, some glaring problems. I don't actually hate the more or less winners only format Vs points. It's definitely possible to be consistently great without having that something something that lets people come out on top in all or nothing scenarios. But the biggest issue for me is no way you can have so few players from major regions, especially Japan. That was insane. It's just a fact that we accept and appreciate that Japan has more top players, so they need to have more spots so we can see more of the best guys out there.
@@sEaNoYeAh when I initially put this comment up, I had suggested spots go to a “mega region” where 3 players qualify from a region. This was mainly for Japan but to a lesser extent, NA East as well. I took it out because I thought it might be confusing and I was trying to keep the post as simple as possible. So I totally agree with you. With more spots via a 64 tournament you could allocate more spots to Japan. I think they deserve at least 4. But some might see that as unfair.
It's so strange how as soon as SF6 released Capcom basically went into communication blackout. In the last year of SFV they did multiple talks and a few before SF6 released, then... nothing. No reasoning for the content schedule, no communication about the focus on avatar gear.
Street fighter 5 had such a chaotic history they basically needed to go on damage control regularly. And avatar gear doesn't really require a explanation. They're just much quicker and simpler to do than SF6 characters outfit.
@@emperormegaman3856 Yeah and to add to that; Avatar/Battle Hub content is simply much less restricted as to what kind of theme or collabs they can do without ruining the actual art direction of the game with ridiculously out-of-character costumes in real matches. They clearly care about that sort of thing now with characters only having costumes that actually fits said character, we won't see megaman Ryu anytime soon let's just say.
@@emperormegaman3856 It shouldn't take a year to get new outfits, regardless of how much simpler it is for avatar outfits. I'm sitting here wanting to give them money and they won't give me the one thing I will actually buy.
@@user-tzzglsstle585e38 This all sounds reasonable, but they haven't actually said that. We've all been speculating for a year and a half. It would feel better if they said: "Hey right now it's more sustainable for us to be making avatar gear, since a lot of people are buying it. Also here are the reasons we are not focusing on costumes and characters more." When it comes to the CPT they have said absolutely nothing to the community, at least not publicly.
For the record we have seen this before, with Starcraft 2. The Korean players were so much better, it was rare for a 'foreigner' to win anything when Koreans traveled. If you wanted to play against the best, you had to go to Korea. And the other scenes suffered because they lacked access to the talent. Iron sharpens iron, and all that. And it was hype when the Koreans showed up! It was hype watching your region try to compete against the best of the best! People don't want to watch a tournament where they know it's the biggest fish in a small pond, even if they're from that small pond. edit: also fwiw to me, "winner becomes a millionaire" doesn't sound hype, it sounds sleazy. The total prize pool is more exciting for me than a big cash payout for #1.
SC2 had a different problem. Even before covid shut everything down they stole our lunch money so often that people started only tuning into tournaments heavily stacked with koreans and watching nothing else. Because everything else was just us getting our lunch money stolent CTC? Took our lunch money Dreamhack? Took our lunch money GSL v World? Took our lunch money Oh we've got great players in global. But SC2 is such a difficult high skilled game that the paradigm has barely budged an inch in nearly half a decade. People started tuning into nothing but korean events long before they stopped flying out to rob us. When there's a region that's the undeniable best, people start to only care about that. It stops being about anything other than watching something punch up at a final boss they can't possibly beat (unless you're part android like Serral or pure grit like Reynor)
its also why when pakistan came into the international tekken scene it was so hype cause it started looking like korea wasnt the best scene. like sure there were a bigger pool of great korean players but seeing pakistan consistently winning was hype af.
Imagine how boring Dreamhack would be if Boxer, Nestea, MVP, Marine King, Bomber, MC, and the rest didn’t show up. The Korean players have an entire tv network behind them. StarCraft is a part of their country’s culture. It’s sad to see how bad things haven’t recovered since covid. They’re so much focus on streamlining they all the heart and soul has been sucked out if it
I am someone who watched almost every premier from 2010 - 2019, but these days my interest in the scene largely extends to EVO and catching up on vods of Daigo for whatever event I discover he attended. The lack of international players is almost entirely the reason. The CPT is gutted, and Capcom Cup since covid feels more like a glorified end-of-season exhibition than a showdown of the best players that year. It's particularly egregious that winning CC nowadays still seems to be treated as being as prestigious as winning it back in the day.
I can speak from personal experience that I was more interested in watching CapCup during the SF5 era despite me not even liking the game compared to now when SF6 has been my main video game to play since release. Really like how you brought it across in the video. Let's hope Capcom hears from this and changes the format for the following years. But that's exactly what we wished for last year as well.
I think Capcom's goal isn't having the best players. They want it to be as international as possible. I think they would believe that this change would lead a bunch of regional people getting stomped early and discouraging those regions. I'm not saying I agree with Capcom, just that this is what I think they are trying to do.
I think for Capcom, the focus is giving players worldwide from all corners of the globe a chance to qualify with minimal cost to the player (especially in obscure or less developed countries) over making the CPT a spectacle for viewers and top players who can afford to travel.
The way we fix this is simple. Have more offline tournaments in different regions. Brazil has some absolutely insane players, and they never get a chance to show thier talent because how many CPT majors are being held in South America. and Japan gets fucked over due to being a absolute mine of high talent. This CPT format also punishes consistency. In Season 1, Punk couldn't get in despite finishing bronze in two super majors back to back(EVO and Gamers8) he medaled at two super majors, consecutively, beat multiple world class players, including the best in the world at the time Mena, and still couldn't get into CC. This time he actually won EVO, but the idea you need to win these super stacked high level events when some of the best players in the world are competing instead of rewarding consistency is insane. XiaoHai should be in Capcom Cup AngryBird should be in Capcom Cup Big Bird should be in Capcom Cup Gachi, Kakeru, all manner of Japanese players Ending, etc. This CPT format punishes *consistency at majors(multiple top 8's mean nothing, even though it is showing you can consistently place high at the hardest tournaments in the world, aka world class) *being in a talent stacked, or economically disadvantaged region(or both)(Japan, Brazil, NA East) If you don't get that lucky day where you win a WW instead of placing top 8, fuck you no CC, if your in a stacked region This format excludes a ridiculous number of top talent, and its inexcusable.
Yeah probably the best thing Capcom could do is divide regions, make invitationals and full on tournaments in countries at those regions, of course viewership will be low due to the tournaments taking place at different regions at the same time. But you could essentially get an amazing top 5 players in each region well fought over several events. Now that we have teams, stories, protagonists and rivalries (Just like league does) we crash them again each other to fill the Capcom cup spots. Sorry if it sounds strange but as a league player, the pro scene just seems a bit more honest (teams pick their players, train and compete for worlds) Here we can't have teams but at least we could have enough players from each region to fight for their spot.
The SFV Japan VS The World were the events with the most hype AND highest skill ceiling at the same time, you don't have to choose one over the other. In a logical world all FGC events should be 50% Japan 50% everybody else, because the number 11 that didn't even make it to top 10 in JP is actually better than many top 3 in other regions.
The problem is that by doing that you are perpetuating that situation. Japan got the initial advantage in fg because of game release dates and arcade culture, but that doesnt mean it has to stay that way forever. If other regions get an equal chance, equal talent will end up sprouting. If you do 50% jp 50% the rest (which would be just na basically) you are taking away the ability to grow up to par for every other region.
@@a200037 Not really. We all get the games on release date now, the gaming culture around fighting games could be bigger in other regions, but it's not. It's a cultural thing, FPS games existed in Japan at the same time as in the US or Russia, but they never exploded in popularity because different cultures have different taste in games. There are just more people in JP that like fighting games even if their population is smaller.
@@a200037 With the end of arcade culture/asynchronous release dates this advantage really isn't a thing anymore and it's only going to depreciate over time. Talent will flourish anywhere there's a dedicated community. Look at the Tekken scene: Korea initially dominated because of those reasons and then out comes Pakistan; now look at how much more diverse the scene is today with Korea Japan and Pakistan trading blows as the top 3 with other regions not trailing too far behind. Now I don't think it necessarily has to be 50/50 for Japan, but 2 guaranteed spots is way too disproportionate for the depth of talent. The point leaderboard system + a select few spots per region just strikes this balance way better
@@a200037Do u realize how unfair and unjust you sound when you make statement like this? Ppl in JP been grinding days and nights and this system should reward and categorize based on their skill and not by regional quotas.
@@a200037 I do not agree, USA has the most tournaments. If I want to be the best basketball player I will go try to play in the NBA, if I want to be the best soccer player I will go to Europe. Japan should always be at the forefront of Street Fighter, they created it and per capita have the best players.
The nostalgic half of me does miss the SF scene when player storylines were easier to follow, but the other half recognizes that was mostly possible because the SF competitive scene was stagnant for so long. I think SF has hit a ceiling in the Japan, US & EU audiences. They need to engage & inspire other regions in order to grow, which is what I think Daigo was getting at. While being familiar with 99% of the Capcom Cup players every year had its charm, that was probably a sign that the tournament was failing to expanding its reach.
Daigo is just like Capcom execs, too insulate from the real world to understand what’s actually happening. Daigo is cool but he lives in Japan and speaks Japanese, in his view this shit is blowing up overseas, but that’s clearly not reality. The scene was not getting stagnant whatsoever, it just had stability because the best players tended to remain on top year after year, the same as it is in every other sport. We still got new talent breaking through like endingwalker, naumann, kawano, Chris CH, and killzyou just to name a few.
@@Aaronthegreatest The difference between the SF competitive scene and sports is that if 1 dominate sports team/region becomes obscure, fanfare still thrives because there is so much interest spread across the other teams/regions. That’s what I consider stability. Capcom Cup, as a global tournament, is not stable because viewership depends heavily on the success of 1 or 2 regions. Anything can happen to Japan’s economy that could hinder sponsorship and player travel. Would there suddenly be no point in Capcom Cup anymore? Hype for other regions won’t explode over night, but it comes with consistent exposure and opportunity. The strategy isn’t perfect, but Capcom execs are actually taking the risks necessary to grow.
Capcom Cup last year had the best storyline where players step up and get their name known when there are a lot of peoples kinda mocking who are these people.
@@kyril98741 That elitist mentality is trash imo. Constructive criticism of the Capcom Cup changes is cool like Brian is doing, but the degrading of newcomers because they’re unpopular and their region isn’t as strong was something I was disappointed to see in the community.
I really think Brian is cooking in this video. I'm from Brazil, I don't follow the scene but I used to tune it whenever a famous player would drop by to kick our asses. It was always incredibly seeing how my compatriots would face against the legends of the game. It was a whole event back in the day when Tokido, Punk came to Brazil for wharever reason.
Unrelated, but goddamn thank God for Sajam existing. I would have never found all my new favs, Brian, Dia, Phi, Brawlpro, Coney, etc. if it wasn't for the slam. Its so refreshing seeing normal, levelheaded, passionate people like Brian and BP succeed. That's all, just wanted to glaze, keep it up Bri 🙏🏼🥰
fr Brian_F is my goat after the slam. i love Phidx and the way he breaks stuff down. maybe i havent come across everyone that does the same for street fighter but brians tournament recap commentary is so entertaining and informative to watch.
The rant at 3ish mins in is so funny because people on Reddit think the complete opposite like Japan doesn't have KILLERS in that region. Talking about we should go back to the SFV system where is was 90% Japanese players because legitimately they're just that good. I see why Capcom changed the system to include more regions
I thought I was in upside-down land a few months ago arguing with multiple people on reddit about mizuha being a notable player. As if top 20 in Japan isn't anything special. I get the sense that maybe the "new game bad" mindset is pretty popular over there, so any SF6-era achievements by newer players are automatically discounted.
Brian i gotta say that the coverage you provide for tournaments and going into the history behind the players and the "drama" of scores being settled is hands down my favourite content that you produce and every time i see a new one i settle myself down and immediately know im about to watch some awesome content. Ive been playing SF for like 35 years now (only about 15 competitively though) and ive never really been bothered about watching tournament play that much until SF6 came along. Im both playing and watching simultaneously which has never really happened with me before so im really enjoying learning the history and backstory of the players, a lot of whom im already somewhat familiar with over the years ive played these games seriously (since SF4). Keep up the good work fella! Its clear you love doing this kind of stuff.
Japanese pros don't complain about removing the points system because they were dying from all the traveling. Right now their #1 priority is nurturing the SFL JP. People like GO1 said that for a pro to be able to stabilize financially, SFL has to grow. And it's working. Peak numbers are around 100k concurrent this season. You also can't forget that the yen trades at 150yen to the US green back right now. Pre-covid it was 125 at worst. I personally travel between Japan and US for work many times a year, but the airfare right now between North America and Japan is brutally expensive. Not many are going to give up practice time for SFL JP for overseas circuit points in this current environment. Only ones that are financially able, like for example, Daigo. If anything, Capcom needs to really go out of their way and figure out how to promote SFL US and EMEA.
I remember players like Dogura, Haitani and Kazunoko talking many times during the pandemic about how much better they felt for NOT having to fly around the world every two weeks and how they only noticed how tired they were all the time once everyone was "forced" to be at home because of COVID.
Most of your rant stands true for almost every game besides Tekken. I watch MK1 once in a while, I don't remember when was the last time Tekken Master went to an offline event! Strive has also been suffering from this ever since offlines came back. I barely get to see the japonese competition overseas. When one or two get to travel, they do extremely well (Tatuma at evo and Leo at AWT Finals come to mind). Also at Evo Japan, despite some notable USA players going there, and Tempest taking the whole thing, besides him there was just one more non-asian player at top 8 and it was Rang, who's brazillian. It's frustrating cause the majors aren't quite 'majors' anymore, they're regionals with a handful of international talent. No disrespect to them but the main product of a pro tour should be the quality competition, even more so than the variety of regions. The balance is too skeewed to the other side.
I don't disagree with your points, but there was a LOT of top international talent at evo japan for strive they just got stomped by Japanese players lol
@@RedQueen_dt But that was exactly my point. When Japan gets to show up they stomp most of the competition. Umisho didn't make top 8 at EVO Japan and she is the second most consistent USA player next to Tempest back then. Can you imagine how different AWT would be if japanese players got to travel to more tournaments besides EVO and a handful at Frost Faustings if any?
For Japanese professionals, the cost of tournaments in the USA and EU is significant due to the long flight times, jet lag, and the fact that they are held during the SFLJP period, in addition to the cost of a weaker yen. It seems to be very difficult for them to stay in good physical condition after returning home. Japanese players are flocking to Singapore, where the time difference between Japan and the US West Coast is only one hour, half the time of a flight between Japan and the US West Coast. Prices are much higher in Singapore than in Japan, though.
you should focus more on his points. if he said its costly, then it is. solve it, not debate it, or cover it for them lol, or tell capcom to increase the prize. i think they are mostly legends, if you really wants to see them, then accomodate them. invite them, help their travel cost, find them hotels. why would you negate their income by not streaming and then force them to travels with their own budget, just to satisfy your hunger? im sure his points about financials says it all and you didn't even touch on it, while every other points is debatable.
I agree with you. When I watch the tournaments, I'm hyped to see Japanese legends like Itazan, Daigo, Fuudo,etc. vs the local talent to gauge if there really is a skill gap.
There should be a hybrid system where half of the qualifiers are from WW events and the other half are from the point system that would be the best of two worlds imo
On Brian bringing up how the more straightforward format works for the Olympics... It's a mix of both. Especially since a lot of the coverage has to consider online viewing, there's been so much hype around building up storylines (and also if you're a high level athlete competing in the olympics AND you're from an underrepresented country, the stories tend to naturally generate themselves). Every time I watch, there's always someone/a group that I start rooting for solely because I've seen background coverage from the olympics even though technically the only way you'd truly know about the athletes from the beginning is by following those specific sports the they're are attached to.
i feel like esports try to lean in on the story that "anyone even viewers can win and compete" but specator sports dont have to follow that at all. my out of shape uncles that love football dont throw a football around because they dream of competing, its because they have stakes on games through team identity, fantasy sports, and individual player stories.
I have to say that its more about the way you look at hype. I understand both sides of the argument. On one hand with Daigo you can see talents from all around the world and people from minor regions can finally see their region, their country represented on stage like a true WORLD WARRIOR type deal. But on the other hand you have Brian here who thinks that the league should give good players more incentive to appear in offline events and have more oppurtunities to actually qualify and appear in the big stage because everyone wants to see thei favourite top players get matched against each other. I do think both sides have a point but I also think it is hard to make both of them true at the same time. UNLESS the World Warrior amount is changed to maybe 1 place per region and then all the other contestants either win tournaments to get a free ticket to Capcom Cup or it is a point system or maybe both can also be done where 1st place gets the spot but other contestants gets points.
Shout-out to Brian for giving Brasil some cred, the locals events here are very very niche and our players have it really hard trying to compete in the international stage mainly do to cost, since dollar is like six times our currency 😅
Not only that, but sometimes the embassy - player matchup is 10-0. Brazil had CC-qualified players unable to compete because of visa issues. And let's not forget CPT 2019, when Capcom had the brilliant idea of making the LATAM regional finals take place in Puerto Rico, a US territory lol
James Chen is having to work overtime researching so many players histories to weave a storyline to make people care about the competition at Capcom Cup because nobody is watching the World Warriors. Giving players from all around the world a chance to show up and show off is a great idea but seeing the 2-3 Japanese, 5 Americans, Mena, The Birds, and handful of other known top players absolutely dog on the unknown players isn't making new Mena's that bolster their contries' governments or notoriety.
Storyline matters so much for competitive games. Melee and Broodwar are probably the two longest running esports, and one of the reason why they're still so popular for spectators is because of the storylines. FGC had a really strong player history with Tekken/SF4, and seeing newcomers rise up and shake up the scene was so exciting (Arslan/Smug). Fast forward to SF5, I felt like every tournament had different players in every top8 and nobody was able to build a story or rivaly. It was just dudes playing. It didn't help that everyone and every character felt the same too
That was the best summarization of the tournament’s scene 👏👏 ma boi cooked. I’d watch any tournament if Bryan was commentating. I want to see the best of the best play and everyone at the top right now is awesome to watch but we haven’t gotten to see most of the top players from an entire region and that’s a shame
Brian you are pushing it with the comment on Japan smoking anyone. This is glasing Japan. The era is over and even some of Japan's best players don't see themselves as the strongest region. It is always thr nobodies who are good enough go et top 32 that still thinks Japan is the best. You guys gotta stop being weird the game is more competitive now. The LCQ had nothing but Japanese players in it fighting for the last spot. Just stop with the noise.
Brian is so right. It is very lame to tune up the latest premier and see that a large part of the bracket is the same people competing every single week at TNS. Keep World Warrior for regional rep, but have the offline premiers have a point system... that motivates people to travel to the events and it's more exciting for the audience as well as we can follow a story, see the path of players fighting for the spots. The current system is either you are first or you are last and that's just not sustainable. I don't think there's any sport that works this way.
Daigo's sentiment is a noble one... but in practice people are losing interest in the scene. Watching a bunch of people you don't know competing in these online tournaments is just not interesting. We all want to watch people we are invested in duking it out, for this reason the only cpt events im interested in this season is EVO, funnily enough the japan online qualifiers and CC itself. I just don't really care about anything else. We need a proper point system back where pros are traveling around the world to offline tournaments again. And to supplement that you can run world warrior events as its own thing and then a day or two before CC cup itself you can run a world warriors offline finals(players gets travel and lodging paid for by capcom) with all the online regional champions where 1-2 spots to the actual cc up is up for grabs. This does not replace the LCQ tournament but is also run alongside it. Anyway this is what i would do if i was in charge.
This year I didn't see any local CPT because it's boring and no anyone I know in the match, but I watched every Esports world cup related games, because many player I liked was in here.
Been saying this since the last CC. CC now is not about the real top players of SF playing against each other. It's about giving the other regions a chance to play and win the CC. They want to expand the playerbase throughout the globe. If they were to bring the old format back it wold definitely be mostly Japanese. Not necessarily a bad thing though since most Japanese players have a fan base all over the world.
On paper if you went to a small tournament locally and won you could earn points and money and be able to go to more, bigger. tournaments but unfortunately people from the best areas with the money and sponsors end up going to those small local tournaments and destroying your chances, to gain more points for themselves. People with less money/opportunities can't even get to bigger tournaments regularly to get the experience they need to compete in the first place, online helps but it can never prepare you fully.
Yes you’re right and you know what, nobody cared lol. The scene was better and more exciting, so let’s just be real no one cares that it’s less accessible, that does not impact the quality of the product. Making it revolve around online tournaments where only winners go through while everyone neglects offline premiers is what is killing he quality.
I’m just gonna be the one to say it but who cares 🤷♂️ the idea that we need to make going to CC accessible makes as much sense as opening up the nfl draft to everyone who rally likes the game regardless of whether they played in college and got drafted. Imagine how the games would be then. It’s the same thing with this. The fgc already had way more accessibility than most other competitive things I can think of cause anyone can play at their local and try to get sponsored or go compete at evo. We don’t need to ruin CPT in the name of more accessibility
@@Aaronthegreatest there's no college for fighting games and a lot of people don't have locals they can easily get to so this would just be another thing that's exclusive to privileged people only, I want the best players to get their chance not just the best sponsored players. I agree that this way that they do it now isn't good, you're right about that. I wish there was more resources put into helping create local tournaments and scenes so people got their chance offline and the tournaments would be better because of it as everyone would level up from experience. As it is I agree its pretty boring.
The fix seems to me to have $500k prize instead of $1mil and use the leftover to have deeper prizes pools at these events so that the likelihood of recouping your costs is higher. A $500k (or even $100K hell still 10x EVO prize money) would still be hype and you'd get a deeper season in the lead up which would create for froth and fan investment.
You have to understand that Daigo is being humble when he says all that stuff about Japan needing to step away so the rest of the world can grow the community. Humility is a part of Japanese culture, you're not going to talk it down, and as goofy as he's gotten over the last few years Daigo is still very, very Japanese. And while I understand what you're saying about interest, you're too focused on "the reward isn't enough". There's an important fact you're glossing over that has made it necessary for Japan to focus on itself and ignore international competition: the economy. I feel like we can't afford to understate how much the weak yen is a big deal in this situation. A lot has changed in the last 3 years; it wasn't just a gradual drop. In 2021 the yen dropped from .0097 down to around .0068, and the top of that was already down from 2012 where it peaked at .0130, and it is _still falling_ (it went down to .0062 this year). That means travel expenses are up, earnings are down, cost of living is a problem for them. Staying home and earning money isn't just better, it's _vital._ How much they would earn from a tournament win isn't even the biggest part of the problem. The problem is their entire life is more expensive now, not just traveling. They can't just get up and go on tour like they used to. It's a mess. So something like Dreamhack where one tournament can help a large number of players, of course it's going to make a difference because the commitment is low. Capcom Cup, with a greater quantity of events and fewer slots, is a much larger investment. And if there's just _one_ thing I disagree with in what Daigo's saying, it's that Japanese pros would travel if the CPT went back to the points system. No, I think the difference in how the CPT works is just an excuse. The truth is they can't handle much travel no matter how it works. They haven't tried doing that in the current economy yet and I am convinced that it will fall flat; they wouldn't be able to maintain it. Things need to get better for the country first. Anyway if you read all that, thanks. I'm old. Have a cookie 🍪
Yeah the Japanese economy is truly effed right now and that makes traveling to play a video game that you won't necessarily make money on risky. Another issue is that there really aren't that many sponsors anymore since the E-Sports balloon popped so even more players are paying out of pocket Realistically the best way to make money with fighting games consistently is to stream and make content
Agreed. Travel is just less affordable than it was pre pandemic, and the lack of sponsorships just makes it an impossibility. Hot take- this might not be a bad thing. This is the way it used to be, but we need to figure out a way to encourage locals and regionals that can build up regional identity so that people aren't simply looking forward to super premier after super premier. Tldr we need more booce moments
Thank you! And SFL being such a big hit in Japan made sure that Capcom JP chose to bolster their domestic scene. SFL is where the money is to most of the players in it. Just check how much money in superchats/subs players make after winning a big match in the league.
I have not watched a qualifier since they started doing guaranteed placements for a lot of the same reasons you mentioned. The point system itself became a game that that the community could get involved in and even help players choose which events to go. It also encouraged top players to attend small random events that would never see a top player in their town.
I think a good compromise would be to have the region-locked online events continue to be auto qualifiers, but just have fewer of them. If these are the only "all or nothing" qualifiers, they could still be exciting to watch. Then have all the offline events return to a points system, but make it so that only your 3 best placements count for earning points. Then make 1st place at the largest offline events (Evo, Combo Breaker) basically guarantee a spot for Capcom Cup: Like 1st place is 1,000 points, 2nd place is 300 points, 3rd place is 200 points. (So placing 2nd at 3 events is not enough points to overtake the Evo champ). This would make points system still important. And those who haven't won a big tournament are still incentivized to keep traveling to offline events to qualify. Meanwhile the regions that can't afford to travel to as many events still have opportunities through the online qualification events and perhaps could try to make it to at least 3 or 4 events for an opportunity qualify as well.
This reminds me a bit of what happened with the Starcraft II scene, a decade ago. From what I recall, they effectively restricted Koreans to Korea, so they wouldn't make up 80~90% of the pros on any given Western tournament. In fear of the Western audience losing interest, I assume. It was a mix of reasons (balance, additions over the next 2 games), but that contributed to the number of spectators' rapid downfall at some point. I stopped watching it myself around that time, so I don't know whether the scene managed to recoup its losses, but watching people, who you knew probably wouldn't have made the cut otherwise, in the finals, killed the hype. People wanted to see an improbable upset of a somewhat both lucky & talented player from US/EU vs one of these seemingly flawless Korean players. A possibility which disappeared overnight. The same thing that makes an Evo attendance go: "USA, USA,USA" when an American faces a boss-type Japanese pro (Daigo, Tokido, Momochi, etc...) in top 8.
The reason the US branch isn't taking off is because most offline tournaments are held there already, and thus you see these players all the fucking time. SFL US used to be hype when there used to be tons of overseas players coming in
The biggest issue is pre-recording sfl. It's not fun knowing it's filmed in a week long period and aired over multiple months. There's no actual growth/adaptation between teams over time.
I'm split. With the old system I felt like I saw the same top 8 every tournament. With the new system I don't see any top 8s because there are so many tournaments I've given up trying to follow them. I feel like the only 'winning' strategy is to let the CPT stuff happen in the background and put our energy into the 'real' tournaments, like CEO/EVO/Frosty Faustings, etc. Make it feel like Evo isn't the only 'international' tournament. Make me excited to put a date on my calendar again.
I think there is in general an argument that making CPT the end goal really does hurt the scene and it is something that most other fighting games don't actually struggle with because they don't really have a tour
I come from Madagascar; I've been organizing grass roots tournaments for Street Fighter here in my country since Street Fighter Alpha series. I have been trying to get attention from Capcom for so long and even at a point I've began to ask Allex Valle and the more known people in the FGC, American side, which steps should be taken in order to get inscribed in the CPT, to have our own region. Over the decade our internet infrastructure has become better and along with friends from South Africa we fought hard to send messages all over the place and we are finally in the CPT but as a South Africa region. The main problem is that we have A LOT OF PLAYERS playing the game but very very few ever make it online because our internet just plain can't do it. Payers from Europe would just end a match seeing our ping over 200ms. Even between us here the best ping we can have varies from 5ms to a whopping 128ms+ The dream is still on but I have no clue who to turn to to get the devs to look in places like where we are. tickets flying out of the country also is like someone's 10 years+ salary here.
I think a lot of good points were raised here. What I actually missed though, are some suggestion on, how it could be done better. I think most people are aware that this format is not perfect, but at the same time, it is still an improvement compared to last year. Furthermore, I do not see how Capcom is supposed to backpaddle on the support they have given to new regions around the world, without getting a massive shitstorm. Also, I think the example with the EWC is not really applicable here, because like a twitch comment in the video pointed out, the Saudi government literally paid for the traveling expenses of some players so they never needed to worry about going to a qualifier in the first place. Lastly, I would also like to point out that the financial aspect is a way bigger aspect that some may realise. Living expenses have risen across the board globally. There is a war going on in europe that also caused rippling effects through a lot of european economies and if players have to deal with a rising cost of important goods in their countries, justifying a flight around the world just seems way harder to do, even with a sponsor I believe.
Yeah, cost of travel skyrocketed so traveling is far more of an issue now. When it comes to offline tournaments though, I think 8 like this year is fine, just place one or two in regions like South America or in Eastern Asia where cost of accomodation is significantly lower than in places like the US or Western Europe. Visa is also an problem, so if you live in South America, traveling to a place in South America might be easier too than going to Europe/US in that regard. Give instead of just one then 2 to 4 spots and it'd work out better, including for players of that region. My main complaint when it comes to WW is the bloat: there's way too many regions in my opinion and rarely do tournaments have a 3-digit figure of players. Making regions (like continental) bigger but giving 2 to 4 qualification spots. It should be done uniformly because the lack of consistency (what's a Super Region, which isn't, why does WW count all 5 tournaments for top spot but top 8 only top 3 etc.) is what I often see in chat streams and occasionally even throws players off.
I agree man. I love seeing someone from my region make it to the cup but I’d rather see the big names than us get eliminated in groups. I made it to evo and got knocked out by a pro from Japan. It was awesome getting to play the best.
Yeah, Brian's totally right. It's been really striking to see how few international players come over for majors in the US now. It's honestly killing my desire to watch SF6 tournaments in general. If it's not Evo or Combo Breaker, you can expect a tournament to have maybe 1 or 2 Japanese players, when in the SFIV and V days, nearly every mid-to-large US tournament would have most of the 5 gods, Fuudo, etc. all come out, alongside a bunch of other top level players from JP and elsewhere. It's cool to see local players too, but at the end of the day it's a competition, and I want to see the best of the best compete as much as I can.
Is the only strat doubling capcom cup player count and just combine the old point system and do world warrior for the other half of spots Maybe then making it every two years coz they'd have to idk
Been complaining about how the format isnt as hype since the end of SFV era. Despite really enjoying playing those last few season's and watching when there was offline again, I barely watched any of the qualifiers for the covid era capcom cup and this carried through into SF6 (even though I personally dont enjoy watching SF6 I still would have watched a bunch of tournaments in year one if it was all offline). Im glad you touched on the regional biased with old format cause I think that is the thing that gets lost a lot in the discussion with the format. Im in New Zealand prior to SF6 we got nothing in SFV era the only big thing we ever got was the intel world open (Which has some massive issues here) I think our qualifiers were getting 60+ people and brought back people who had dropped the game and a qualifier for redbull kumite one year which im not sure how big that was as I was new to the scene then. I think if Capcom was to do offline point system they need to spread the offline events around more into the smaller regions. The experience of playing some of these top oversea's players would help the smaller scenes grow. From experience there is people out there who watch the CPT but dont even know there is local scenes
I agree that at least for EU and NA there is a lot less hype for cpt and the yearly circuit. What I feel like they should have done with the World Warrior format is have the tournament system be the main way to get in CPT by placing you in the final CPT bracket (no groupsstage) Then with World Warrior have a pretournament where they fight it out groupstage style to get placed in the remaining slots in the bracket. It will be less risk to try to qualify directly into the bracket but if you don't have the means to do that, then World warrior gives you a chance to still get in. Which I think also strengthens the storyline of these underdogs fought it out and proved themselves the best but can they hold up to the top SF players in the bracket. The only problem is capcom has to flight out more players but you also get more eyeballs this way and the CPT itself will have to be less days so you can cut some costs that way. Or just take some of that 1 million and put it to better use 😅
Brian, I know you're a busy dude but I think you'd be great at making something like Versus Vortex, but focused on player stories and tournaments. Your vids when you do it already are great, but with a few other people helping and a dedicated space/branding, it could bring to a wider audience what is hype about tournaments that Capcom et al don't really seem to get it. Just look at some of the streamer/vtuber tournament success - the audience gets really invested in the players. People want to see the personalities, interactions, rivalies and player story arcs as well as great games. There's not really a single good place for people to get a window into that, as with more traditional sports.
I agree with all of this. I've attended most CPT Finals events in person since 2014, including for sf5 which i wasnt even a big fan of. Main reason was i was still invested in various player's progress, the storylines, and the rivalries that had built up over the numerous offline events. And sponsors definitely helped the international scene in the sf5 days fwiw. But now despite me heavily favoring sf6 over sf5, i care much less about CPT. As you mentioned, the few offline events we get in the states just feel like watching offline TNS weeklies, and the regionals WW events happen constantly and are hard to track while still not introducing me to the person behind the Online Ken or the Online Juri. So CPT Finals comes and 90% of the strong japanese are absent, while brackets are filled with people im physically seeing for the first time. I still travel to offline events and enjoy games and see friends, but as a spectator it is lackluster.
International competition is the way to go. Look at Tekken 8 and it's TWT. Are most of those events composed of locals? Yes. Are major names like Jeonding, Arslan Ash, Knee, Kkokkoma, The Jon at most of them (well maybe except for the Pakistani because of the visa issues)? Also yes. Does it make every event feel like it's worth watching? Also yes. Take notes.
I did think that once Diago was done making his point, it would be FOR going back to the point system. But it came off as him succumbing to "this is the way it is, I guess its okay". your like...wait...no we want it BACK to the previous CPT structure. I get it.
I agree 100%. I love daigo but he has adopted this capcom corporate view that the way to build the franchise is by leaning into the “world warrior” thing and promoting it all over the world so that you build local fans in every country, that is clearly the strategy. And it sounds good on paper. But in reality like you mentioned, it’s actually having the opposite effect, it’s making the scene boring and dry as hell cause we see the top players compete offline so much less. I got into the fgc/SF scene in 2018/2019. This was during sfv era and the points system was utilized. It felt like almost every other week there was a tournament where *everyone* showed up - daigo, problem x, tokido, mago, sako, bonchan, fudo, gachikun, phenom, shuto, etc etc and all the killers from the US and the rest of the world. You got to know the players, follow their storylines, know the rivalries, and see people interact “irl” so to speak. How do we know this is more effective? Well besides the sad statistics for WW tourneys, the 2019 way of doing things literally brought me and a ton of others into the scene. It salvaged a game that was disliked after launch and helped it sell 7mm copies or whatever it ended up doing. It was basically a series of events I couldn’t miss and it was awesome to watch. Now? Everything is dry and dead and boring outside of the few offline we do have, and even they’ve been downgraded. CEO and combobreaker used to bring the best internationally and be amazing, but now it’s just another North American regional and you get excited if endingwalker and problem bother to show up. We continue getting blessed with daigo thankfully, but it’s extremely sad to see the downgrade. TLDR, you are right and capcom is sucking the hype out of its own scene and letting down the amazing game the dev team made. The support post launch is a failure in terms of content (where are the stages? The costumes? I want to spend on these things) and most of all, the CPT. So we’re all hoping Brian you and people like you who can maybe get thru to capcom community manager or whatever keep making the case: PLEASE FIX CPT! Not saying you have to fully bring back 2019, keep some offline tournaments that are region locked to guarantee representation for capcom cup, but at least half those spots need to come from a points system, not this terrible winner takes all system. It’s an easy fix, I hope they do it. Honestly I am falling out of the scene a little bit just because there’s so little to watch outside of the invitationals which are still pretty cool and evo which is once a year.
The only reason I got into SF5 was the Capcum Streams from the Local Tournaments. It was cool seeing players from all over the world competing and with the face cams and all.
I used to watch soooooo much during the SF4 and SF5, even tho i hated playing SF5. Watching the best players side by side in person with so much pressure, with people going crazy in the audience is what made me love the FGC. I feel like we lost the heart of it all, all the personalities from the players and the emotions we only get to see in person. People popping off, people crying etc. Imagine not getting to see Tokido hit a raging demon, pop off and get in front of the projector because he is sitting at home playing online? that's so sad...
I started following the competitive scene / CPT in 2014. I remember how excited I was to stream Capcom Cup all weekend for the final USF4 event. Even though the rollout of SFV was rough (in terms of the full game, roster, balance, etc), I still followed the CPT closely in 2016, and felt it only got better from there. When Covid hit it destroyed my interest in competitive Street Fighter. I thought I might get back into it when travel bounced back... but the events have never been the same, and I just moved on. Evo is the only thing tune in for.
I 1000% get why Capcom chose this format. Before online tournaments were a viable option, it was clear that the people who had the most money to travel had the best opportunity for qualifying. However since online tournaments ARE viable now, they should just go back to the point system and have the offline tournaments grant the most points. This way everyone has incentive to travel AND those who can't can just grind as many online tournaments as possible. Then everyone can feel that the best players are truly competing in the CC finals.
I agree with so much of this. I don't watch world warrior, but I compete. But I wish there were more offline events I could go to. I would rather travel to an offline every two months than the online convenience. It also means people from my region (UK) are less likely to go up against other people around the world unless they get to Capcom Cup because why bother? Now that I'm finally old enough to travel, there aren't the same events for me to go to anymore
16:35 the other factor is that japanese top players are focusing on different thing rn. There are lot of tournament like Raccon cup that involve streamer from different field that trying sf6 for the first time. look how much exciting Sajam cup and Japan already on it since last year and there still lot of collaboration happening.
I feel like I agree with everything you said, but I also think its ok if Capcom Cup is simply something different. Other tournament series can continue with the standard structure, and I totally understand the prize pools being much much small for these making them not so important. It may not be the best way, but I really do enjoy the tension of the final games. It could be better, but I also enjoy that its unique.
I think it's better for tournament series to be designed to foster the highest level of play as much as possible. Better for everyone. Even the locals who have no chance of winning regionals if 25 Japanese players show up. Because they level up from playing against those traveling pros, and then they can get good enough to have a chance at finals instead of automatically losing because no player in their region can provide a JP pro-level training partner or rival.
This is literally how all of SF6 has felt. I love this game so much more than SFV, but SFV was one of my favorite things to watch during it's time. The rivalries and storylines that came from all those big tournaments were fire! It makes Capcom Cup by the end of the season just feel flat because the journey getting there didn't hype you for the people involved.
13:01 ngl, because of this rare occurrence, a big tournaments like EVO, EWC, and eventually Capcom Cup will have hype views because it is worth the wait. Last year, people were complaining about too many tournaments and seeing them constantly make it lose their special. Last year Capcom Cup already proved that we should give these unknown players to grow and have their platform.
More offline would be cool. Compromise for local talent would be the top 7 point qualifiers after 4 online region locked tournaments are given a flight to a renown regional tournament to act as the regional finals. All regional finals should have an open bracket LCQ where the winner gets the 8th place allowing for people to snipe the regional spot or for the hometown heroes to defend. If they insist on online, I'd also take a consolation World Invader gimmick. Besides their own region, people can choose 2 other regions they can join throughout the year. This let's other more competitive regions choose to snipe spots from perceived weaker regions. If they win the spot either by 1st place finals or points, their qualification spot gets labeled World Invaded.
I think you forgot one aspect - ECT isn't even TNS + 2 international players... it's TNS + 2 international players MINUS all the people who auto-qualified. Punk qualified at the beginning of the season and now has no incentive to travel to any offline tournament for the rest of the year. At least if I watch TNS I get to see the player who's (among) the best in the world play!
There's pros and cons with whatever is suggested. They could do 3 in person majors per continent (location and venue may vary) and the rest of the spots region locked online spread out throughout the world and there's problems with that. We could do it the old points system, then there's problems with that. I don't know if there is a best solution out there. My guess is as good as everyone else's.
At the end of the day, we need to ask what do we want from Capcom cup. For me that's to see the BEST 32 players in the world play it out regardless of where they are from. No offense, but I don't want to see players from the under represented regions get washed in groups what was the point of them being there?
The funny thing about current CPT to me is that they gut the entire prize pool to get the 1mi at first place, but by giving a single player 1 fugging million dollars you pretty much make the player retire lol Like I'm not trying to disrespect UMA or anything, but he pretty much showed up outta nowhere, won Capcom Cup, and just vanished off the face of the Earth. It's so lame, I just wish competing was somewhat viable monetarily.
This is such a good point. In what other competitive medium would somebody win the championship then totally dip out immediately after? None! You go back out next year and defend your title! It's such a bad look for the scene that UMA won the first super anticipated mega-purse for SF6, and less than a year later literally nobody talks about him. That's not how you build long-term loyalty and interest in SF as a game and community.
Uma did not show up outta nowhere, he was already competing in East Asian tournaments years ago. And he certainly did not vanish off the face of the Earth. He still streams regularly and participates in community events in Taiwan. And by the way, he did not retire. All Uma said was he was taking a break from competing for a while. But you don't know that because you don't follow his scene.
They didn't learn from this exact phenomenon happening in Dota 2. Ultra Top Heavy Prize pools are only good for headlines, but they generate negative headlines about the game dying if they ever decrease, and they stave the middle scene in the meanwhile. Teams disbanding immediately if they don't qualify that big prize pool tourney. You get the champions on the mic in the post win interview and ask them what they're going to do next, they shrug and half jokingly say "retire?"
100%, I got into fighting games when sfxt came out. What hooked me on the scene was seeing people from different countries battle it out. I’m from nyc so there a lot of notable players here, but what made me want to go tournaments was seeing people from my city battle and players who traveled here. I used to watch every single tournament just to see a random person beat a Japanese or Korean player. Now, I really only watch Evo or tournaments of that scale to see if it can happen again. I am no where near a top 8 performer but entering a tournament to see if I can win a singular point was a fun little bonus objective that made me enter street fighter. Now i could care less cause I don’t care.
not a single person with minimal engagement in competitive aspect agrees with the way capcom manages the competitive scene its as if the NBA instead organized a tournament with all teams from other leagues "to give small teams a chance" and in the end you only get to see 4 or 5 NBA team x NBA team matches + a stupid prize distribution at the end the reason is obvious ... capcom market team thinks this way they get more sales capcom is making sure sf4 hype af era is a distant memory
In LoL terms, this would be like if Riot changed worlds so there's only 1 LCK and 1 LPL team. We already KNOW they're the best, we expect them to win, but it's amazing to see just HOW good they are, and when your region actually takes down one of those giants, 1st seed or 3rd seed it feels SOOO good.
agree, largely. imagine if all the effort they put into ww streaming was put into a local regional and that regional gave points, then you got ppl from all over with a reason to go and it provides a more clearly observable circuit. i think its great that ppl can qualify from online only but yeah having offline regionals end up the same ppl as online weeklies is kinda wack. it was awesome having daigo, problem x, endingwalker at c3, they even came to the pre party at our local venue and we got to meet and play some of them and itd be even better if even more players came out and if other regions could have those experiences at their regionals too. strengthens the tournament infrastructure and makes those events continue to be valuable outside a pure competition perspective, even for players outside the highest level.
I watch Tekken, and this years tour format(finals format is terrible tho) in Tekken (Offline only, Top1 from 15 regional leaderboards, Top20 from the global leaderboard, Top2 from the LCQ) has been the thing carrying an otherwise horrid game balance and prize pooling. I have seen more internationals and representations this year than previous years, Tekken Master's(a top bahraini NRS player) run against korean and pakistani players in Emirates Showdown in Dubai was hype because there were top players there. Now the format at the finals is TERRIBLE mind you, regionals are in a separate group from the globals, and they're also automatically in losers after the group stage, while globals are in winners automatically, killing any chance to see how they would match up against known top players. The LCQ also includes the group stage losers from both the regional and global rounds robins, leading to repeat match ups that were already seen in the group stage potentially.
It's weird because I've been to Paris CPT season 1, I Was 2 offline CPT events this year and the hype was real and palpable. There are less popular players but the top players are there and the level of play is pretty high. I understand the complaints but offline events are thriving and more popular than before. I was there during SF4 and SFV offline events and there's more people, more things to do and events are better organized now than before. Every downside is on Capcom's part, Ft2 and the point system.
Perspective is important. At the end of the day this is a Videogame , a genre among others within video games. Games are meant to be about fun. Involve people and many at that perspective is lost. End of the day only ones words that matter to me is the ones close to my heart.
another reason SFV left a bad taste in alot of people's mouths is because the SF4 CPT was still getting better every year. and SFV wasnt ready for release anyway
I'm casual with fighting games but an avid viewer and Brian is just putting into words what I already experienced. As great as SF6 is, I'm just not as invested in watching big CPT tournaments so much because I have no idea who a lot of players are. It's super cool that unknowns can get a chance, yeah, but it feels more like a gimmick via bad planning that's missed the forest for the trees.
I really miss the old pro circuit. 2019 was the year that i finally started watching almost every tournament and the hype was amazing. I even stayed late to watch evo 2019 which was the first for me.
I'm Australian. I care about street fighter casually. What do I know about the players at BAM a few months ago? Tokido was there, that's it. Everyone's online these days, and everyone knows the international competitors who travel. The presence of international competition is what makes local tournaments interesting.
Pre covid I used to watch every tournament i could. I'd look forward to it all week, and clear my weekend to watch as much as I could from poola to grand finals. Now I only watch Evo and CC. I am indifferent to everything else.
The take that keeping it gated "helps" the smaller communities is also super weird. With the new system, they play each other, then ONE of them gets to go to this big tournament and play the best players. With the older system those same best players would travel to these regions and all the players from there would get to play them all in tournament, and likely run some sets often for a few days. If anything, with the new system you could be tempted to think "what's the point?" if unless you are the best in your region you can never be exposed to the best international players. Obviously in most other aspects, old format is better (viewership, storylines, interest, etc.) but even for the competitive players of the smaller regions it seems like it feels worse.
I do agree that CPT has lost touch with its audience. Like, I was ecstatic that Capcom Cup was in Japan this year, then they announced the ultimate let down by saying there would be no LCQ this year. That completely deflated me, lol. LCQ IN JAPAN would have been amazing.
Full agreement here. One thing that was even more insane about how EWC was presented by some people in the FGC (cough cough Ernesto) gave bigger numbers than 1 million, acting like the club shit meant shit or the entire prize pool.
The way I look at the Japanese player pool. Imagine all the top players in both North and South America, now have them all live in California. I don't think there's a way to put Japan's population density into perspective for a lot of Americans.
This could maybe be fixed with in-game tournament watch parties or more advertising for what tournaments are happening in-game. It is too difficult to keep up with all these tournaments that people just watch youtubers like you to stay up to date. But I agree. The CPT has lost the starpower it once had when you could consistently watch the best players compete.
I personally like tournaments restricted by region because I don't want every tournament to be the same top players flying in and dominating the whole thing. Last year's CPT was big sleep.
TNS is an amazing online format as an audience member. You’ve got the official broadcast, then half the field live streaming and hanging out during/between and post their matches. More of that 👍
damn such good points here. i watched so much SFV and figured it was mostly me that changed to only follow your tournament reports now instead of watch every major. they did lose lots of the hype with international competition and players
I thought this is Brian getting mad at Daigo. It's actually, Brian getting mad that he's not getting enough Daigo. 😆
He is a paid spokesperson of Capcom, so it makes sense.
@@Testrun32-r8n Source (that you dont have)?
@unofficialtoppotdoughnuts6364 this guy comments this on every video lol even on this video where im doing nothing but CRITIQUING capcom
I wish i got paid by capcom to critique them lol
@@Brian_F mans is a professional hater. wakes up, takes a shit, look to see if brian posted a video, gets out of bed.
@@Testrun32-r8nyour life seems so sad bro lol
This video is reminding me of a story. I had grown up playing Street Fighter since 1987 in the arcade. I've never been a "good" player, but I loved Street Fighter. I was a foreign exchange student to Japan in 1994. Over the course of that year I spent maybe 200 bucks playing Street Fighter at arcades with Japanese folks. Hundreds of games, and I won maybe two matches the whole time. Now, before that experience I was below average in my area back home. After I got back nobody in my area could touch me in Street Fighter. It was amazing.
It checks out
You are the coolest.
From Japan.
おもろい
the F stands for fRant
I thought it was fReaky
BriRant_FRant
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Brian is right. For the first time in 12+ years I don't really care about what is going on in the competitive scene outside of EVO and CC. There was something to be said in having the global best of the best travelling around the world hungry for points every few weeks that brought out the highest quality competition consistently and gave a better emotional payoff for both the winner and viewer. Now it's kinda meh.
It also meant most killers who already qualified at this point had to stay on their toes and keep going to torneys and doing well, or they risked getting beaten in points by other playwrs grinding more
Welcome to SF6, the hype killer.
@@ProsodiJ big facts used to be happy as hell seeing tournament now i see these no names on stage doing worst than what id do is crazy they definitely need to setup better tournament for everyone not regions some of these regions are trash
There are no more rivalries or money matches to rep a set either. That has made it less entertaining, imo as well.
That has been ruined by sponsors and the social climate. I miss a little trash talk. Punk is about the only one who is still talking sht and even he is tame.
I think top players being able to make money outside of the core tournaments is a pretty gigantic plus for the community though.
Watching this on the bus back to NYC from ECT and it’s hard to describe how a tournament hits way harder when you walk in the venue and see top international talent. Makes you more invested, inspires you, and if you go far or pull off an upset against an international juggernaut it is legitimately hype. Your pride/investment in your local scene balloons BECAUSE your people are winning against top players from other regions.
There has to be a way to strike a balance that prioritizes offline international play, and creating storylines/hype from this international competition while still creating avenues for underrepresented regions to compete.
Yo well played, saw you cook on stream
@@Brian_F I appreciate it man! Hoping to make it out to more majors moving forward
If Capcom Cup was increased to 64 players then there could potentially be up to 16 more premier spots to add to the existing 10, making 26. Or have some more super/regular regions with some more premier spots. The premier spots could be made up from a global leaderboard finalised through players attending several premiers to accrue points (like how it was pre-COVID).
An entire 64 player tournament with 16 groups of 4 players (FT2), where the top 2 go through to a 32 double elimination bracket (FT2), and then at the top 16 stage, matches increase to FT3 ; would have the exact same number of matches to play as the current entire 48 tournament format (8 groups of 6 FT2 > top 16 FT3). So both tournament formats have 142 matches in total. Therefore Capcom might as well do a 64 player tournament instead of 48.
From this my suggestion for spots would be:
> 1 spot - Previous winner (seeded)
> 22 spots - from a global leaderboard (all seeded)
> 1 spot - LCQ (seeded)
> 28 spots - 14 Super regions (6 seeds from winners of 6 top regions)
> 12 spots - 12 Regular regions
I think this solution would bring back the excitement of CPT and have the best players qualify whilst still allowing for good players from all over the world from obscure regions who can’t afford to travel.
EDIT: Apologies for the long comment, I’m just passionate about this situation as well.
Personally I thought the most recent Capcom Cup was the best ever, super hype throughout, but yeah, some glaring problems. I don't actually hate the more or less winners only format Vs points. It's definitely possible to be consistently great without having that something something that lets people come out on top in all or nothing scenarios. But the biggest issue for me is no way you can have so few players from major regions, especially Japan. That was insane. It's just a fact that we accept and appreciate that Japan has more top players, so they need to have more spots so we can see more of the best guys out there.
@@sEaNoYeAh when I initially put this comment up, I had suggested spots go to a “mega region” where 3 players qualify from a region. This was mainly for Japan but to a lesser extent, NA East as well. I took it out because I thought it might be confusing and I was trying to keep the post as simple as possible. So I totally agree with you. With more spots via a 64 tournament you could allocate more spots to Japan. I think they deserve at least 4. But some might see that as unfair.
It's so strange how as soon as SF6 released Capcom basically went into communication blackout. In the last year of SFV they did multiple talks and a few before SF6 released, then... nothing. No reasoning for the content schedule, no communication about the focus on avatar gear.
Street fighter 5 had such a chaotic history they basically needed to go on damage control regularly.
And avatar gear doesn't really require a explanation. They're just much quicker and simpler to do than SF6 characters outfit.
@@emperormegaman3856 Yeah and to add to that; Avatar/Battle Hub content is simply much less restricted as to what kind of theme or collabs they can do without ruining the actual art direction of the game with ridiculously out-of-character costumes in real matches.
They clearly care about that sort of thing now with characters only having costumes that actually fits said character, we won't see megaman Ryu anytime soon let's just say.
@@emperormegaman3856 It shouldn't take a year to get new outfits, regardless of how much simpler it is for avatar outfits. I'm sitting here wanting to give them money and they won't give me the one thing I will actually buy.
@@user-tzzglsstle585e38 This all sounds reasonable, but they haven't actually said that. We've all been speculating for a year and a half. It would feel better if they said: "Hey right now it's more sustainable for us to be making avatar gear, since a lot of people are buying it. Also here are the reasons we are not focusing on costumes and characters more." When it comes to the CPT they have said absolutely nothing to the community, at least not publicly.
@@TalicZealot I mean yeah it's all speculation based on their actions, but yeah it'd be better if there's some communication.
For the record we have seen this before, with Starcraft 2. The Korean players were so much better, it was rare for a 'foreigner' to win anything when Koreans traveled. If you wanted to play against the best, you had to go to Korea. And the other scenes suffered because they lacked access to the talent. Iron sharpens iron, and all that. And it was hype when the Koreans showed up! It was hype watching your region try to compete against the best of the best! People don't want to watch a tournament where they know it's the biggest fish in a small pond, even if they're from that small pond.
edit: also fwiw to me, "winner becomes a millionaire" doesn't sound hype, it sounds sleazy. The total prize pool is more exciting for me than a big cash payout for #1.
SC2 had a different problem. Even before covid shut everything down they stole our lunch money so often that people started only tuning into tournaments heavily stacked with koreans and watching nothing else. Because everything else was just us getting our lunch money stolent
CTC? Took our lunch money
Dreamhack? Took our lunch money
GSL v World? Took our lunch money
Oh we've got great players in global. But SC2 is such a difficult high skilled game that the paradigm has barely budged an inch in nearly half a decade. People started tuning into nothing but korean events long before they stopped flying out to rob us. When there's a region that's the undeniable best, people start to only care about that. It stops being about anything other than watching something punch up at a final boss they can't possibly beat (unless you're part android like Serral or pure grit like Reynor)
its also why when pakistan came into the international tekken scene it was so hype cause it started looking like korea wasnt the best scene. like sure there were a bigger pool of great korean players but seeing pakistan consistently winning was hype af.
Imagine how boring Dreamhack would be if Boxer, Nestea, MVP, Marine King, Bomber, MC, and the rest didn’t show up.
The Korean players have an entire tv network behind them. StarCraft is a part of their country’s culture.
It’s sad to see how bad things haven’t recovered since covid. They’re so much focus on streamlining they all the heart and soul has been sucked out if it
I am someone who watched almost every premier from 2010 - 2019, but these days my interest in the scene largely extends to EVO and catching up on vods of Daigo for whatever event I discover he attended. The lack of international players is almost entirely the reason. The CPT is gutted, and Capcom Cup since covid feels more like a glorified end-of-season exhibition than a showdown of the best players that year. It's particularly egregious that winning CC nowadays still seems to be treated as being as prestigious as winning it back in the day.
My thoughts exactly
Yep. It ain’t good but it is getting better every year
@@Limit5482 how
@@АскарШуканов more offlines then the past 4 years and people and starting to travel
I can speak from personal experience that I was more interested in watching CapCup during the SF5 era despite me not even liking the game compared to now when SF6 has been my main video game to play since release.
Really like how you brought it across in the video. Let's hope Capcom hears from this and changes the format for the following years. But that's exactly what we wished for last year as well.
Increase the participants to 64, classify 16 to 32 players through the point system and the rest through regional world warrior tournaments.
Simple
I think Capcom's goal isn't having the best players. They want it to be as international as possible. I think they would believe that this change would lead a bunch of regional people getting stomped early and discouraging those regions. I'm not saying I agree with Capcom, just that this is what I think they are trying to do.
@@Kasaaz they're getting stomped at capcom cup regardless
I think for Capcom, the focus is giving players worldwide from all corners of the globe a chance to qualify with minimal cost to the player (especially in obscure or less developed countries) over making the CPT a spectacle for viewers and top players who can afford to travel.
47 minute rant video?!
**Grabs Popcorn**
The way we fix this is simple.
Have more offline tournaments in different regions.
Brazil has some absolutely insane players, and they never get a chance to show thier talent because how many CPT majors are being held in South America.
and Japan gets fucked over due to being a absolute mine of high talent.
This CPT format also punishes consistency.
In Season 1, Punk couldn't get in despite finishing bronze in two super majors back to back(EVO and Gamers8) he medaled at two super majors, consecutively, beat multiple world class players, including the best in the world at the time Mena, and still couldn't get into CC.
This time he actually won EVO, but the idea you need to win these super stacked high level events when some of the best players in the world are competing instead of rewarding consistency is insane.
XiaoHai should be in Capcom Cup
AngryBird should be in Capcom Cup
Big Bird should be in Capcom Cup
Gachi, Kakeru, all manner of Japanese players
Ending, etc.
This CPT format punishes
*consistency at majors(multiple top 8's mean nothing, even though it is showing you can consistently place high at the hardest tournaments in the world, aka world class)
*being in a talent stacked, or economically disadvantaged region(or both)(Japan, Brazil, NA East)
If you don't get that lucky day where you win a WW instead of placing top 8, fuck you no CC, if your in a stacked region
This format excludes a ridiculous number of top talent, and its inexcusable.
Yeah probably the best thing Capcom could do is divide regions, make invitationals and full on tournaments in countries at those regions, of course viewership will be low due to the tournaments taking place at different regions at the same time. But you could essentially get an amazing top 5 players in each region well fought over several events.
Now that we have teams, stories, protagonists and rivalries (Just like league does) we crash them again each other to fill the Capcom cup spots.
Sorry if it sounds strange but as a league player, the pro scene just seems a bit more honest (teams pick their players, train and compete for worlds) Here we can't have teams but at least we could have enough players from each region to fight for their spot.
Wah wah wah
@@zackswitch9656 Do you have anything to actually add.
The SFV Japan VS The World were the events with the most hype AND highest skill ceiling at the same time, you don't have to choose one over the other. In a logical world all FGC events should be 50% Japan 50% everybody else, because the number 11 that didn't even make it to top 10 in JP is actually better than many top 3 in other regions.
The problem is that by doing that you are perpetuating that situation. Japan got the initial advantage in fg because of game release dates and arcade culture, but that doesnt mean it has to stay that way forever. If other regions get an equal chance, equal talent will end up sprouting. If you do 50% jp 50% the rest (which would be just na basically) you are taking away the ability to grow up to par for every other region.
@@a200037 Not really. We all get the games on release date now, the gaming culture around fighting games could be bigger in other regions, but it's not. It's a cultural thing, FPS games existed in Japan at the same time as in the US or Russia, but they never exploded in popularity because different cultures have different taste in games. There are just more people in JP that like fighting games even if their population is smaller.
@@a200037 With the end of arcade culture/asynchronous release dates this advantage really isn't a thing anymore and it's only going to depreciate over time. Talent will flourish anywhere there's a dedicated community. Look at the Tekken scene: Korea initially dominated because of those reasons and then out comes Pakistan; now look at how much more diverse the scene is today with Korea Japan and Pakistan trading blows as the top 3 with other regions not trailing too far behind. Now I don't think it necessarily has to be 50/50 for Japan, but 2 guaranteed spots is way too disproportionate for the depth of talent. The point leaderboard system + a select few spots per region just strikes this balance way better
@@a200037Do u realize how unfair and unjust you sound when you make statement like this? Ppl in JP been grinding days and nights and this system should reward and categorize based on their skill and not by regional quotas.
@@a200037 I do not agree, USA has the most tournaments. If I want to be the best basketball player I will go try to play in the NBA, if I want to be the best soccer player I will go to Europe. Japan should always be at the forefront of Street Fighter, they created it and per capita have the best players.
The nostalgic half of me does miss the SF scene when player storylines were easier to follow, but the other half recognizes that was mostly possible because the SF competitive scene was stagnant for so long. I think SF has hit a ceiling in the Japan, US & EU audiences. They need to engage & inspire other regions in order to grow, which is what I think Daigo was getting at.
While being familiar with 99% of the Capcom Cup players every year had its charm, that was probably a sign that the tournament was failing to expanding its reach.
Daigo is just like Capcom execs, too insulate from the real world to understand what’s actually happening. Daigo is cool but he lives in Japan and speaks Japanese, in his view this shit is blowing up overseas, but that’s clearly not reality.
The scene was not getting stagnant whatsoever, it just had stability because the best players tended to remain on top year after year, the same as it is in every other sport. We still got new talent breaking through like endingwalker, naumann, kawano, Chris CH, and killzyou just to name a few.
@@Aaronthegreatest The difference between the SF competitive scene and sports is that if 1 dominate sports team/region becomes obscure, fanfare still thrives because there is so much interest spread across the other teams/regions. That’s what I consider stability.
Capcom Cup, as a global tournament, is not stable because viewership depends heavily on the success of 1 or 2 regions. Anything can happen to Japan’s economy that could hinder sponsorship and player travel. Would there suddenly be no point in Capcom Cup anymore?
Hype for other regions won’t explode over night, but it comes with consistent exposure and opportunity. The strategy isn’t perfect, but Capcom execs are actually taking the risks necessary to grow.
Capcom Cup last year had the best storyline where players step up and get their name known when there are a lot of peoples kinda mocking who are these people.
@@kyril98741 That elitist mentality is trash imo. Constructive criticism of the Capcom Cup changes is cool like Brian is doing, but the degrading of newcomers because they’re unpopular and their region isn’t as strong was something I was disappointed to see in the community.
I really think Brian is cooking in this video. I'm from Brazil, I don't follow the scene but I used to tune it whenever a famous player would drop by to kick our asses. It was always incredibly seeing how my compatriots would face against the legends of the game. It was a whole event back in the day when Tokido, Punk came to Brazil for wharever reason.
Unrelated, but goddamn thank God for Sajam existing. I would have never found all my new favs, Brian, Dia, Phi, Brawlpro, Coney, etc. if it wasn't for the slam. Its so refreshing seeing normal, levelheaded, passionate people like Brian and BP succeed. That's all, just wanted to glaze, keep it up Bri 🙏🏼🥰
Oh youre a sajam fan now?
fr Brian_F is my goat after the slam. i love Phidx and the way he breaks stuff down. maybe i havent come across everyone that does the same for street fighter but brians tournament recap commentary is so entertaining and informative to watch.
he should've gotten that million dollars for free marketing
Please don't take the Lord's name in vain
I don't see dokibird the coldest gief in the game and eskay (who's actually impressive) on here
The rant at 3ish mins in is so funny because people on Reddit think the complete opposite like Japan doesn't have KILLERS in that region. Talking about we should go back to the SFV system where is was 90% Japanese players because legitimately they're just that good. I see why Capcom changed the system to include more regions
I thought I was in upside-down land a few months ago arguing with multiple people on reddit about mizuha being a notable player. As if top 20 in Japan isn't anything special.
I get the sense that maybe the "new game bad" mindset is pretty popular over there, so any SF6-era achievements by newer players are automatically discounted.
i used to set aside my whole weekend for cpt premier event. good times
I'd go to work on Monday ranting about how awesome it was too. If I watch them now, I wait until they're mostly over and just skim through
Brian i gotta say that the coverage you provide for tournaments and going into the history behind the players and the "drama" of scores being settled is hands down my favourite content that you produce and every time i see a new one i settle myself down and immediately know im about to watch some awesome content.
Ive been playing SF for like 35 years now (only about 15 competitively though) and ive never really been bothered about watching tournament play that much until SF6 came along. Im both playing and watching simultaneously which has never really happened with me before so im really enjoying learning the history and backstory of the players, a lot of whom im already somewhat familiar with over the years ive played these games seriously (since SF4).
Keep up the good work fella! Its clear you love doing this kind of stuff.
I don't watch fighting game tournaments, but I always watch Brian's recaps
Japanese pros don't complain about removing the points system because they were dying from all the traveling. Right now their #1 priority is nurturing the SFL JP. People like GO1 said that for a pro to be able to stabilize financially, SFL has to grow. And it's working. Peak numbers are around 100k concurrent this season.
You also can't forget that the yen trades at 150yen to the US green back right now. Pre-covid it was 125 at worst. I personally travel between Japan and US for work many times a year, but the airfare right now between North America and Japan is brutally expensive. Not many are going to give up practice time for SFL JP for overseas circuit points in this current environment. Only ones that are financially able, like for example, Daigo.
If anything, Capcom needs to really go out of their way and figure out how to promote SFL US and EMEA.
I remember players like Dogura, Haitani and Kazunoko talking many times during the pandemic about how much better they felt for NOT having to fly around the world every two weeks and how they only noticed how tired they were all the time once everyone was "forced" to be at home because of COVID.
Most of your rant stands true for almost every game besides Tekken. I watch MK1 once in a while, I don't remember when was the last time Tekken Master went to an offline event! Strive has also been suffering from this ever since offlines came back. I barely get to see the japonese competition overseas. When one or two get to travel, they do extremely well (Tatuma at evo and Leo at AWT Finals come to mind). Also at Evo Japan, despite some notable USA players going there, and Tempest taking the whole thing, besides him there was just one more non-asian player at top 8 and it was Rang, who's brazillian. It's frustrating cause the majors aren't quite 'majors' anymore, they're regionals with a handful of international talent. No disrespect to them but the main product of a pro tour should be the quality competition, even more so than the variety of regions. The balance is too skeewed to the other side.
I agree with you on everything except the level of competition. Trust me it's still there.
I don't disagree with your points, but there was a LOT of top international talent at evo japan for strive they just got stomped by Japanese players lol
@@RedQueen_dt But that was exactly my point. When Japan gets to show up they stomp most of the competition. Umisho didn't make top 8 at EVO Japan and she is the second most consistent USA player next to Tempest back then. Can you imagine how different AWT would be if japanese players got to travel to more tournaments besides EVO and a handful at Frost Faustings if any?
For Japanese professionals, the cost of tournaments in the USA and EU is significant due to the long flight times, jet lag, and the fact that they are held during the SFLJP period, in addition to the cost of a weaker yen.
It seems to be very difficult for them to stay in good physical condition after returning home.
Japanese players are flocking to Singapore, where the time difference between Japan and the US West Coast is only one hour, half the time of a flight between Japan and the US West Coast.
Prices are much higher in Singapore than in Japan, though.
you should focus more on his points. if he said its costly, then it is. solve it, not debate it, or cover it for them lol, or tell capcom to increase the prize.
i think they are mostly legends, if you really wants to see them, then accomodate them. invite them, help their travel cost, find them hotels. why would you negate their income by not streaming and then force them to travels with their own budget, just to satisfy your hunger?
im sure his points about financials says it all and you didn't even touch on it, while every other points is debatable.
Bingo most sane response
I agree with you. When I watch the tournaments, I'm hyped to see Japanese legends like Itazan, Daigo, Fuudo,etc. vs the local talent to gauge if there really is a skill gap.
There should be a hybrid system where half of the qualifiers are from WW events and the other half are from the point system that would be the best of two worlds imo
On Brian bringing up how the more straightforward format works for the Olympics... It's a mix of both. Especially since a lot of the coverage has to consider online viewing, there's been so much hype around building up storylines (and also if you're a high level athlete competing in the olympics AND you're from an underrepresented country, the stories tend to naturally generate themselves). Every time I watch, there's always someone/a group that I start rooting for solely because I've seen background coverage from the olympics even though technically the only way you'd truly know about the athletes from the beginning is by following those specific sports the they're are attached to.
i feel like esports try to lean in on the story that "anyone even viewers can win and compete" but specator sports dont have to follow that at all. my out of shape uncles that love football dont throw a football around because they dream of competing, its because they have stakes on games through team identity, fantasy sports, and individual player stories.
I have to say that its more about the way you look at hype. I understand both sides of the argument. On one hand with Daigo you can see talents from all around the world and people from minor regions can finally see their region, their country represented on stage like a true WORLD WARRIOR type deal. But on the other hand you have Brian here who thinks that the league should give good players more incentive to appear in offline events and have more oppurtunities to actually qualify and appear in the big stage because everyone wants to see thei favourite top players get matched against each other. I do think both sides have a point but I also think it is hard to make both of them true at the same time. UNLESS the World Warrior amount is changed to maybe 1 place per region and then all the other contestants either win tournaments to get a free ticket to Capcom Cup or it is a point system or maybe both can also be done where 1st place gets the spot but other contestants gets points.
Shout-out to Brian for giving Brasil some cred, the locals events here are very very niche and our players have it really hard trying to compete in the international stage mainly do to cost, since dollar is like six times our currency 😅
Not only that, but sometimes the embassy - player matchup is 10-0. Brazil had CC-qualified players unable to compete because of visa issues.
And let's not forget CPT 2019, when Capcom had the brilliant idea of making the LATAM regional finals take place in Puerto Rico, a US territory lol
James Chen is having to work overtime researching so many players histories to weave a storyline to make people care about the competition at Capcom Cup because nobody is watching the World Warriors.
Giving players from all around the world a chance to show up and show off is a great idea but seeing the 2-3 Japanese, 5 Americans, Mena, The Birds, and handful of other known top players absolutely dog on the unknown players isn't making new Mena's that bolster their contries' governments or notoriety.
Storyline matters so much for competitive games. Melee and Broodwar are probably the two longest running esports, and one of the reason why they're still so popular for spectators is because of the storylines. FGC had a really strong player history with Tekken/SF4, and seeing newcomers rise up and shake up the scene was so exciting (Arslan/Smug).
Fast forward to SF5, I felt like every tournament had different players in every top8 and nobody was able to build a story or rivaly. It was just dudes playing. It didn't help that everyone and every character felt the same too
It's crazy that for the past couple of years it felt like the LCQ for Capcom Cup was more hype than the cup itself
That was the best summarization of the tournament’s scene 👏👏 ma boi cooked. I’d watch any tournament if Bryan was commentating. I want to see the best of the best play and everyone at the top right now is awesome to watch but we haven’t gotten to see most of the top players from an entire region and that’s a shame
Brian you are pushing it with the comment on Japan smoking anyone. This is glasing Japan. The era is over and even some of Japan's best players don't see themselves as the strongest region. It is always thr nobodies who are good enough go et top 32 that still thinks Japan is the best.
You guys gotta stop being weird the game is more competitive now. The LCQ had nothing but Japanese players in it fighting for the last spot. Just stop with the noise.
This is facts. I’m not suprised though Brian still acts like daigo is a top 5 Japanese player, he’s obviously biased af
Brian is so right. It is very lame to tune up the latest premier and see that a large part of the bracket is the same people competing every single week at TNS.
Keep World Warrior for regional rep, but have the offline premiers have a point system... that motivates people to travel to the events and it's more exciting for the audience as well as we can follow a story, see the path of players fighting for the spots.
The current system is either you are first or you are last and that's just not sustainable. I don't think there's any sport that works this way.
Daigo's sentiment is a noble one... but in practice people are losing interest in the scene. Watching a bunch of people you don't know competing in these online tournaments is just not interesting. We all want to watch people we are invested in duking it out, for this reason the only cpt events im interested in this season is EVO, funnily enough the japan online qualifiers and CC itself. I just don't really care about anything else.
We need a proper point system back where pros are traveling around the world to offline tournaments again. And to supplement that you can run world warrior events as its own thing and then a day or two before CC cup itself you can run a world warriors offline finals(players gets travel and lodging paid for by capcom) with all the online regional champions where 1-2 spots to the actual cc up is up for grabs. This does not replace the LCQ tournament but is also run alongside it. Anyway this is what i would do if i was in charge.
This year I didn't see any local CPT because it's boring and no anyone I know in the match, but I watched every Esports world cup related games, because many player I liked was in here.
i feel like their goal is just more variety of players. if it is they should have two different cups, or alternate the setup annually.
I mean, they managed to just make it mostly american the whole year in the end. So european and japanese don't give a shit and lose interest.
No, god
Been saying this since the last CC. CC now is not about the real top players of SF playing against each other. It's about giving the other regions a chance to play and win the CC. They want to expand the playerbase throughout the globe. If they were to bring the old format back it wold definitely be mostly Japanese. Not necessarily a bad thing though since most Japanese players have a fan base all over the world.
The old format was pay to get in to Capcom cup, only a certain amount of players can afford to travel to all the tournaments and earn points
Many players paid to go to every tournament and failed to qualify. Money was a barrier to entry though agree there.
On paper if you went to a small tournament locally and won you could earn points and money and be able to go to more, bigger. tournaments but unfortunately people from the best areas with the money and sponsors end up going to those small local tournaments and destroying your chances, to gain more points for themselves. People with less money/opportunities can't even get to bigger tournaments regularly to get the experience they need to compete in the first place, online helps but it can never prepare you fully.
Yes you’re right and you know what, nobody cared lol. The scene was better and more exciting, so let’s just be real no one cares that it’s less accessible, that does not impact the quality of the product. Making it revolve around online tournaments where only winners go through while everyone neglects offline premiers is what is killing he quality.
I’m just gonna be the one to say it but who cares 🤷♂️ the idea that we need to make going to CC accessible makes as much sense as opening up the nfl draft to everyone who rally likes the game regardless of whether they played in college and got drafted. Imagine how the games would be then. It’s the same thing with this.
The fgc already had way more accessibility than most other competitive things I can think of cause anyone can play at their local and try to get sponsored or go compete at evo. We don’t need to ruin CPT in the name of more accessibility
@@Aaronthegreatest there's no college for fighting games and a lot of people don't have locals they can easily get to so this would just be another thing that's exclusive to privileged people only, I want the best players to get their chance not just the best sponsored players. I agree that this way that they do it now isn't good, you're right about that. I wish there was more resources put into helping create local tournaments and scenes so people got their chance offline and the tournaments would be better because of it as everyone would level up from experience. As it is I agree its pretty boring.
The fix seems to me to have $500k prize instead of $1mil and use the leftover to have deeper prizes pools at these events so that the likelihood of recouping your costs is higher. A $500k (or even $100K hell still 10x EVO prize money) would still be hype and you'd get a deeper season in the lead up which would create for froth and fan investment.
You have to understand that Daigo is being humble when he says all that stuff about Japan needing to step away so the rest of the world can grow the community. Humility is a part of Japanese culture, you're not going to talk it down, and as goofy as he's gotten over the last few years Daigo is still very, very Japanese.
And while I understand what you're saying about interest, you're too focused on "the reward isn't enough". There's an important fact you're glossing over that has made it necessary for Japan to focus on itself and ignore international competition: the economy.
I feel like we can't afford to understate how much the weak yen is a big deal in this situation. A lot has changed in the last 3 years; it wasn't just a gradual drop. In 2021 the yen dropped from .0097 down to around .0068, and the top of that was already down from 2012 where it peaked at .0130, and it is _still falling_ (it went down to .0062 this year). That means travel expenses are up, earnings are down, cost of living is a problem for them. Staying home and earning money isn't just better, it's _vital._
How much they would earn from a tournament win isn't even the biggest part of the problem. The problem is their entire life is more expensive now, not just traveling. They can't just get up and go on tour like they used to. It's a mess. So something like Dreamhack where one tournament can help a large number of players, of course it's going to make a difference because the commitment is low. Capcom Cup, with a greater quantity of events and fewer slots, is a much larger investment.
And if there's just _one_ thing I disagree with in what Daigo's saying, it's that Japanese pros would travel if the CPT went back to the points system. No, I think the difference in how the CPT works is just an excuse. The truth is they can't handle much travel no matter how it works. They haven't tried doing that in the current economy yet and I am convinced that it will fall flat; they wouldn't be able to maintain it. Things need to get better for the country first.
Anyway if you read all that, thanks. I'm old. Have a cookie 🍪
Yeah the Japanese economy is truly effed right now and that makes traveling to play a video game that you won't necessarily make money on risky.
Another issue is that there really aren't that many sponsors anymore since the E-Sports balloon popped so even more players are paying out of pocket
Realistically the best way to make money with fighting games consistently is to stream and make content
Agreed. Travel is just less affordable than it was pre pandemic, and the lack of sponsorships just makes it an impossibility. Hot take- this might not be a bad thing. This is the way it used to be, but we need to figure out a way to encourage locals and regionals that can build up regional identity so that people aren't simply looking forward to super premier after super premier.
Tldr we need more booce moments
Thank you! And SFL being such a big hit in Japan made sure that Capcom JP chose to bolster their domestic scene. SFL is where the money is to most of the players in it. Just check how much money in superchats/subs players make after winning a big match in the league.
I have not watched a qualifier since they started doing guaranteed placements for a lot of the same reasons you mentioned. The point system itself became a game that that the community could get involved in and even help players choose which events to go. It also encouraged top players to attend small random events that would never see a top player in their town.
I think a good compromise would be to have the region-locked online events continue to be auto qualifiers, but just have fewer of them. If these are the only "all or nothing" qualifiers, they could still be exciting to watch.
Then have all the offline events return to a points system, but make it so that only your 3 best placements count for earning points. Then make 1st place at the largest offline events (Evo, Combo Breaker) basically guarantee a spot for Capcom Cup:
Like 1st place is 1,000 points, 2nd place is 300 points, 3rd place is 200 points. (So placing 2nd at 3 events is not enough points to overtake the Evo champ).
This would make points system still important. And those who haven't won a big tournament are still incentivized to keep traveling to offline events to qualify.
Meanwhile the regions that can't afford to travel to as many events still have opportunities through the online qualification events and perhaps could try to make it to at least 3 or 4 events for an opportunity qualify as well.
This reminds me a bit of what happened with the Starcraft II scene, a decade ago. From what I recall, they effectively restricted Koreans to Korea, so they wouldn't make up 80~90% of the pros on any given Western tournament. In fear of the Western audience losing interest, I assume. It was a mix of reasons (balance, additions over the next 2 games), but that contributed to the number of spectators' rapid downfall at some point.
I stopped watching it myself around that time, so I don't know whether the scene managed to recoup its losses, but watching people, who you knew probably wouldn't have made the cut otherwise, in the finals, killed the hype.
People wanted to see an improbable upset of a somewhat both lucky & talented player from US/EU vs one of these seemingly flawless Korean players. A possibility which disappeared overnight. The same thing that makes an Evo attendance go: "USA, USA,USA" when an American faces a boss-type Japanese pro (Daigo, Tokido, Momochi, etc...) in top 8.
I wonder if Capcom is hoping Street Fighter League takes off, but I don't think it is. At least the US branch
The reason the US branch isn't taking off is because most offline tournaments are held there already, and thus you see these players all the fucking time. SFL US used to be hype when there used to be tons of overseas players coming in
The biggest issue is pre-recording sfl. It's not fun knowing it's filmed in a week long period and aired over multiple months. There's no actual growth/adaptation between teams over time.
@@Hazakura-in it's just become so milquetoast. And I get it, they're trying to get the personalities over, but the JP SFL has so much energy
@@Brian_F Yeah prerecording is kinda dumb, especially in our era where rollback network is incredible
@@Hazakura-in agreed.May as well take advantage of the strong online infrastructure they've built.
I'm split. With the old system I felt like I saw the same top 8 every tournament. With the new system I don't see any top 8s because there are so many tournaments I've given up trying to follow them. I feel like the only 'winning' strategy is to let the CPT stuff happen in the background and put our energy into the 'real' tournaments, like CEO/EVO/Frosty Faustings, etc. Make it feel like Evo isn't the only 'international' tournament. Make me excited to put a date on my calendar again.
I think there is in general an argument that making CPT the end goal really does hurt the scene and it is something that most other fighting games don't actually struggle with because they don't really have a tour
I immediately got distracted by that giant spider hanging out on the wall above the guitar. What was Brian talking about?
I come from Madagascar; I've been organizing grass roots tournaments for Street Fighter here in my country since Street Fighter Alpha series. I have been trying to get attention from Capcom for so long and even at a point I've began to ask Allex Valle and the more known people in the FGC, American side, which steps should be taken in order to get inscribed in the CPT, to have our own region.
Over the decade our internet infrastructure has become better and along with friends from South Africa we fought hard to send messages all over the place and we are finally in the CPT but as a South Africa region.
The main problem is that we have A LOT OF PLAYERS playing the game but very very few ever make it online because our internet just plain can't do it. Payers from Europe would just end a match seeing our ping over 200ms. Even between us here the best ping we can have varies from 5ms to a whopping 128ms+
The dream is still on but I have no clue who to turn to to get the devs to look in places like where we are. tickets flying out of the country also is like someone's 10 years+ salary here.
I think a lot of good points were raised here. What I actually missed though, are some suggestion on, how it could be done better. I think most people are aware that this format is not perfect, but at the same time, it is still an improvement compared to last year. Furthermore, I do not see how Capcom is supposed to backpaddle on the support they have given to new regions around the world, without getting a massive shitstorm. Also, I think the example with the EWC is not really applicable here, because like a twitch comment in the video pointed out, the Saudi government literally paid for the traveling expenses of some players so they never needed to worry about going to a qualifier in the first place. Lastly, I would also like to point out that the financial aspect is a way bigger aspect that some may realise. Living expenses have risen across the board globally. There is a war going on in europe that also caused rippling effects through a lot of european economies and if players have to deal with a rising cost of important goods in their countries, justifying a flight around the world just seems way harder to do, even with a sponsor I believe.
Yeah, cost of travel skyrocketed so traveling is far more of an issue now. When it comes to offline tournaments though, I think 8 like this year is fine, just place one or two in regions like South America or in Eastern Asia where cost of accomodation is significantly lower than in places like the US or Western Europe. Visa is also an problem, so if you live in South America, traveling to a place in South America might be easier too than going to Europe/US in that regard. Give instead of just one then 2 to 4 spots and it'd work out better, including for players of that region.
My main complaint when it comes to WW is the bloat: there's way too many regions in my opinion and rarely do tournaments have a 3-digit figure of players. Making regions (like continental) bigger but giving 2 to 4 qualification spots. It should be done uniformly because the lack of consistency (what's a Super Region, which isn't, why does WW count all 5 tournaments for top spot but top 8 only top 3 etc.) is what I often see in chat streams and occasionally even throws players off.
I agree man. I love seeing someone from my region make it to the cup but I’d rather see the big names than us get eliminated in groups. I made it to evo and got knocked out by a pro from Japan. It was awesome getting to play the best.
Yeah, Brian's totally right. It's been really striking to see how few international players come over for majors in the US now. It's honestly killing my desire to watch SF6 tournaments in general.
If it's not Evo or Combo Breaker, you can expect a tournament to have maybe 1 or 2 Japanese players, when in the SFIV and V days, nearly every mid-to-large US tournament would have most of the 5 gods, Fuudo, etc. all come out, alongside a bunch of other top level players from JP and elsewhere. It's cool to see local players too, but at the end of the day it's a competition, and I want to see the best of the best compete as much as I can.
Is the only strat doubling capcom cup player count and just combine the old point system and do world warrior for the other half of spots
Maybe then making it every two years coz they'd have to idk
Been complaining about how the format isnt as hype since the end of SFV era. Despite really enjoying playing those last few season's and watching when there was offline again, I barely watched any of the qualifiers for the covid era capcom cup and this carried through into SF6 (even though I personally dont enjoy watching SF6 I still would have watched a bunch of tournaments in year one if it was all offline).
Im glad you touched on the regional biased with old format cause I think that is the thing that gets lost a lot in the discussion with the format. Im in New Zealand prior to SF6 we got nothing in SFV era the only big thing we ever got was the intel world open (Which has some massive issues here) I think our qualifiers were getting 60+ people and brought back people who had dropped the game and a qualifier for redbull kumite one year which im not sure how big that was as I was new to the scene then.
I think if Capcom was to do offline point system they need to spread the offline events around more into the smaller regions. The experience of playing some of these top oversea's players would help the smaller scenes grow. From experience there is people out there who watch the CPT but dont even know there is local scenes
I agree that at least for EU and NA there is a lot less hype for cpt and the yearly circuit.
What I feel like they should have done with the World Warrior format is have the tournament system be the main way to get in CPT by placing you in the final CPT bracket (no groupsstage) Then with World Warrior have a pretournament where they fight it out groupstage style to get placed in the remaining slots in the bracket.
It will be less risk to try to qualify directly into the bracket but if you don't have the means to do that, then World warrior gives you a chance to still get in. Which I think also strengthens the storyline of these underdogs fought it out and proved themselves the best but can they hold up to the top SF players in the bracket.
The only problem is capcom has to flight out more players but you also get more eyeballs this way and the CPT itself will have to be less days so you can cut some costs that way. Or just take some of that 1 million and put it to better use 😅
Brian, I know you're a busy dude but I think you'd be great at making something like Versus Vortex, but focused on player stories and tournaments. Your vids when you do it already are great, but with a few other people helping and a dedicated space/branding, it could bring to a wider audience what is hype about tournaments that Capcom et al don't really seem to get it. Just look at some of the streamer/vtuber tournament success - the audience gets really invested in the players. People want to see the personalities, interactions, rivalies and player story arcs as well as great games. There's not really a single good place for people to get a window into that, as with more traditional sports.
@@cobaingrohlnovoHumans are complex creatures. It seems that u can't throw away the worst thing lol
I agree with all of this. I've attended most CPT Finals events in person since 2014, including for sf5 which i wasnt even a big fan of. Main reason was i was still invested in various player's progress, the storylines, and the rivalries that had built up over the numerous offline events. And sponsors definitely helped the international scene in the sf5 days fwiw. But now despite me heavily favoring sf6 over sf5, i care much less about CPT. As you mentioned, the few offline events we get in the states just feel like watching offline TNS weeklies, and the regionals WW events happen constantly and are hard to track while still not introducing me to the person behind the Online Ken or the Online Juri. So CPT Finals comes and 90% of the strong japanese are absent, while brackets are filled with people im physically seeing for the first time. I still travel to offline events and enjoy games and see friends, but as a spectator it is lackluster.
International competition is the way to go. Look at Tekken 8 and it's TWT. Are most of those events composed of locals? Yes. Are major names like Jeonding, Arslan Ash, Knee, Kkokkoma, The Jon at most of them (well maybe except for the Pakistani because of the visa issues)? Also yes. Does it make every event feel like it's worth watching? Also yes. Take notes.
I did think that once Diago was done making his point, it would be FOR going back to the point system. But it came off as him succumbing to "this is the way it is, I guess its okay". your like...wait...no we want it BACK to the previous CPT structure. I get it.
I agree 100%. I love daigo but he has adopted this capcom corporate view that the way to build the franchise is by leaning into the “world warrior” thing and promoting it all over the world so that you build local fans in every country, that is clearly the strategy. And it sounds good on paper. But in reality like you mentioned, it’s actually having the opposite effect, it’s making the scene boring and dry as hell cause we see the top players compete offline so much less.
I got into the fgc/SF scene in 2018/2019. This was during sfv era and the points system was utilized. It felt like almost every other week there was a tournament where *everyone* showed up - daigo, problem x, tokido, mago, sako, bonchan, fudo, gachikun, phenom, shuto, etc etc and all the killers from the US and the rest of the world. You got to know the players, follow their storylines, know the rivalries, and see people interact “irl” so to speak.
How do we know this is more effective? Well besides the sad statistics for WW tourneys, the 2019 way of doing things literally brought me and a ton of others into the scene. It salvaged a game that was disliked after launch and helped it sell 7mm copies or whatever it ended up doing. It was basically a series of events I couldn’t miss and it was awesome to watch.
Now? Everything is dry and dead and boring outside of the few offline we do have, and even they’ve been downgraded. CEO and combobreaker used to bring the best internationally and be amazing, but now it’s just another North American regional and you get excited if endingwalker and problem bother to show up. We continue getting blessed with daigo thankfully, but it’s extremely sad to see the downgrade.
TLDR, you are right and capcom is sucking the hype out of its own scene and letting down the amazing game the dev team made. The support post launch is a failure in terms of content (where are the stages? The costumes? I want to spend on these things) and most of all, the CPT.
So we’re all hoping Brian you and people like you who can maybe get thru to capcom community manager or whatever keep making the case: PLEASE FIX CPT! Not saying you have to fully bring back 2019, keep some offline tournaments that are region locked to guarantee representation for capcom cup, but at least half those spots need to come from a points system, not this terrible winner takes all system.
It’s an easy fix, I hope they do it. Honestly I am falling out of the scene a little bit just because there’s so little to watch outside of the invitationals which are still pretty cool and evo which is once a year.
The only reason I got into SF5 was the Capcum Streams from the Local Tournaments.
It was cool seeing players from all over the world competing and with the face cams and all.
I used to watch soooooo much during the SF4 and SF5, even tho i hated playing SF5. Watching the best players side by side in person with so much pressure, with people going crazy in the audience is what made me love the FGC.
I feel like we lost the heart of it all, all the personalities from the players and the emotions we only get to see in person. People popping off, people crying etc.
Imagine not getting to see Tokido hit a raging demon, pop off and get in front of the projector because he is sitting at home playing online? that's so sad...
I started following the competitive scene / CPT in 2014. I remember how excited I was to stream Capcom Cup all weekend for the final USF4 event. Even though the rollout of SFV was rough (in terms of the full game, roster, balance, etc), I still followed the CPT closely in 2016, and felt it only got better from there. When Covid hit it destroyed my interest in competitive Street Fighter. I thought I might get back into it when travel bounced back... but the events have never been the same, and I just moved on. Evo is the only thing tune in for.
I 1000% get why Capcom chose this format. Before online tournaments were a viable option, it was clear that the people who had the most money to travel had the best opportunity for qualifying. However since online tournaments ARE viable now, they should just go back to the point system and have the offline tournaments grant the most points.
This way everyone has incentive to travel AND those who can't can just grind as many online tournaments as possible. Then everyone can feel that the best players are truly competing in the CC finals.
I agree with so much of this. I don't watch world warrior, but I compete. But I wish there were more offline events I could go to. I would rather travel to an offline every two months than the online convenience. It also means people from my region (UK) are less likely to go up against other people around the world unless they get to Capcom Cup because why bother?
Now that I'm finally old enough to travel, there aren't the same events for me to go to anymore
16:35 the other factor is that japanese top players are focusing on different thing rn. There are lot of tournament like Raccon cup that involve streamer from different field that trying sf6 for the first time. look how much exciting Sajam cup and Japan already on it since last year and there still lot of collaboration happening.
I see BrianF video, I click.
Me 2
I feel like I agree with everything you said, but I also think its ok if Capcom Cup is simply something different. Other tournament series can continue with the standard structure, and I totally understand the prize pools being much much small for these making them not so important. It may not be the best way, but I really do enjoy the tension of the final games. It could be better, but I also enjoy that its unique.
I think it's better for tournament series to be designed to foster the highest level of play as much as possible. Better for everyone. Even the locals who have no chance of winning regionals if 25 Japanese players show up. Because they level up from playing against those traveling pros, and then they can get good enough to have a chance at finals instead of automatically losing because no player in their region can provide a JP pro-level training partner or rival.
This is literally how all of SF6 has felt. I love this game so much more than SFV, but SFV was one of my favorite things to watch during it's time. The rivalries and storylines that came from all those big tournaments were fire! It makes Capcom Cup by the end of the season just feel flat because the journey getting there didn't hype you for the people involved.
13:01 ngl, because of this rare occurrence, a big tournaments like EVO, EWC, and eventually Capcom Cup will have hype views because it is worth the wait. Last year, people were complaining about too many tournaments and seeing them constantly make it lose their special. Last year Capcom Cup already proved that we should give these unknown players to grow and have their platform.
More offline would be cool. Compromise for local talent would be the top 7 point qualifiers after 4 online region locked tournaments are given a flight to a renown regional tournament to act as the regional finals. All regional finals should have an open bracket LCQ where the winner gets the 8th place allowing for people to snipe the regional spot or for the hometown heroes to defend.
If they insist on online, I'd also take a consolation World Invader gimmick. Besides their own region, people can choose 2 other regions they can join throughout the year. This let's other more competitive regions choose to snipe spots from perceived weaker regions. If they win the spot either by 1st place finals or points, their qualification spot gets labeled World Invaded.
I think you forgot one aspect - ECT isn't even TNS + 2 international players... it's TNS + 2 international players MINUS all the people who auto-qualified. Punk qualified at the beginning of the season and now has no incentive to travel to any offline tournament for the rest of the year. At least if I watch TNS I get to see the player who's (among) the best in the world play!
There's pros and cons with whatever is suggested. They could do 3 in person majors per continent (location and venue may vary) and the rest of the spots region locked online spread out throughout the world and there's problems with that. We could do it the old points system, then there's problems with that. I don't know if there is a best solution out there. My guess is as good as everyone else's.
At the end of the day, we need to ask what do we want from Capcom cup. For me that's to see the BEST 32 players in the world play it out regardless of where they are from. No offense, but I don't want to see players from the under represented regions get washed in groups what was the point of them being there?
The funny thing about current CPT to me is that they gut the entire prize pool to get the 1mi at first place, but by giving a single player 1 fugging million dollars you pretty much make the player retire lol
Like I'm not trying to disrespect UMA or anything, but he pretty much showed up outta nowhere, won Capcom Cup, and just vanished off the face of the Earth.
It's so lame, I just wish competing was somewhat viable monetarily.
Yeah the million dollar thing is hype but long term it hurts the whole scene
This is such a good point. In what other competitive medium would somebody win the championship then totally dip out immediately after? None! You go back out next year and defend your title!
It's such a bad look for the scene that UMA won the first super anticipated mega-purse for SF6, and less than a year later literally nobody talks about him. That's not how you build long-term loyalty and interest in SF as a game and community.
Uma did not show up outta nowhere, he was already competing in East Asian tournaments years ago. And he certainly did not vanish off the face of the Earth. He still streams regularly and participates in community events in Taiwan. And by the way, he did not retire. All Uma said was he was taking a break from competing for a while. But you don't know that because you don't follow his scene.
They didn't learn from this exact phenomenon happening in Dota 2. Ultra Top Heavy Prize pools are only good for headlines, but they generate negative headlines about the game dying if they ever decrease, and they stave the middle scene in the meanwhile. Teams disbanding immediately if they don't qualify that big prize pool tourney.
You get the champions on the mic in the post win interview and ask them what they're going to do next, they shrug and half jokingly say "retire?"
100%, I got into fighting games when sfxt came out. What hooked me on the scene was seeing people from different countries battle it out.
I’m from nyc so there a lot of notable players here, but what made me want to go tournaments was seeing people from my city battle and players who traveled here.
I used to watch every single tournament just to see a random person beat a Japanese or Korean player. Now, I really only watch Evo or tournaments of that scale to see if it can happen again.
I am no where near a top 8 performer but entering a tournament to see if I can win a singular point was a fun little bonus objective that made me enter street fighter. Now i could care less cause I don’t care.
While the argument of “Japan to good, let players grow on their own” makes sense on paper, it’s a response of unneeded charity.
not a single person with minimal engagement in competitive aspect agrees with the way capcom manages the competitive scene
its as if the NBA instead organized a tournament with all teams from other leagues "to give small teams a chance" and in the end you only get to see 4 or 5 NBA team x NBA team matches + a stupid prize distribution at the end
the reason is obvious ... capcom market team thinks this way they get more sales
capcom is making sure sf4 hype af era is a distant memory
In LoL terms, this would be like if Riot changed worlds so there's only 1 LCK and 1 LPL team. We already KNOW they're the best, we expect them to win, but it's amazing to see just HOW good they are, and when your region actually takes down one of those giants, 1st seed or 3rd seed it feels SOOO good.
agree, largely. imagine if all the effort they put into ww streaming was put into a local regional and that regional gave points, then you got ppl from all over with a reason to go and it provides a more clearly observable circuit. i think its great that ppl can qualify from online only but yeah having offline regionals end up the same ppl as online weeklies is kinda wack. it was awesome having daigo, problem x, endingwalker at c3, they even came to the pre party at our local venue and we got to meet and play some of them and itd be even better if even more players came out and if other regions could have those experiences at their regionals too. strengthens the tournament infrastructure and makes those events continue to be valuable outside a pure competition perspective, even for players outside the highest level.
I watch Tekken, and this years tour format(finals format is terrible tho) in Tekken (Offline only, Top1 from 15 regional leaderboards, Top20 from the global leaderboard, Top2 from the LCQ) has been the thing carrying an otherwise horrid game balance and prize pooling. I have seen more internationals and representations this year than previous years, Tekken Master's(a top bahraini NRS player) run against korean and pakistani players in Emirates Showdown in Dubai was hype because there were top players there.
Now the format at the finals is TERRIBLE mind you, regionals are in a separate group from the globals, and they're also automatically in losers after the group stage, while globals are in winners automatically, killing any chance to see how they would match up against known top players. The LCQ also includes the group stage losers from both the regional and global rounds robins, leading to repeat match ups that were already seen in the group stage potentially.
It's weird because I've been to Paris CPT season 1, I Was 2 offline CPT events this year and the hype was real and palpable. There are less popular players but the top players are there and the level of play is pretty high. I understand the complaints but offline events are thriving and more popular than before. I was there during SF4 and SFV offline events and there's more people, more things to do and events are better organized now than before. Every downside is on Capcom's part, Ft2 and the point system.
Whatever the format people will complain.
Perspective is important. At the end of the day this is a Videogame , a genre among others within video games. Games are meant to be about fun. Involve people and many at that perspective is lost. End of the day only ones words that matter to me is the ones close to my heart.
another reason SFV left a bad taste in alot of people's mouths is because the SF4 CPT was still getting better every year. and SFV wasnt ready for release anyway
I'm casual with fighting games but an avid viewer and Brian is just putting into words what I already experienced. As great as SF6 is, I'm just not as invested in watching big CPT tournaments so much because I have no idea who a lot of players are. It's super cool that unknowns can get a chance, yeah, but it feels more like a gimmick via bad planning that's missed the forest for the trees.
I really miss the old pro circuit. 2019 was the year that i finally started watching almost every tournament and the hype was amazing. I even stayed late to watch evo 2019 which was the first for me.
I'm Australian. I care about street fighter casually. What do I know about the players at BAM a few months ago? Tokido was there, that's it.
Everyone's online these days, and everyone knows the international competitors who travel. The presence of international competition is what makes local tournaments interesting.
You’re carrying the narrative of competitive SF6 pretty hard with your recap videos. Hope you keep with them
Pre covid I used to watch every tournament i could. I'd look forward to it all week, and clear my weekend to watch as much as I could from poola to grand finals. Now I only watch Evo and CC. I am indifferent to everything else.
The take that keeping it gated "helps" the smaller communities is also super weird.
With the new system, they play each other, then ONE of them gets to go to this big tournament and play the best players. With the older system those same best players would travel to these regions and all the players from there would get to play them all in tournament, and likely run some sets often for a few days.
If anything, with the new system you could be tempted to think "what's the point?" if unless you are the best in your region you can never be exposed to the best international players.
Obviously in most other aspects, old format is better (viewership, storylines, interest, etc.) but even for the competitive players of the smaller regions it seems like it feels worse.
I do agree that CPT has lost touch with its audience. Like, I was ecstatic that Capcom Cup was in Japan this year, then they announced the ultimate let down by saying there would be no LCQ this year. That completely deflated me, lol. LCQ IN JAPAN would have been amazing.
No Debate that Japan deserves more slots, i think minimum 3-4 slots for Japan
I never know when is the next tournament anymore. Is there a site that list them all?
Full agreement here.
One thing that was even more insane about how EWC was presented by some people in the FGC (cough cough Ernesto) gave bigger numbers than 1 million, acting like the club shit meant shit or the entire prize pool.
The way I look at the Japanese player pool. Imagine all the top players in both North and South America, now have them all live in California. I don't think there's a way to put Japan's population density into perspective for a lot of Americans.
This could maybe be fixed with in-game tournament watch parties or more advertising for what tournaments are happening in-game. It is too difficult to keep up with all these tournaments that people just watch youtubers like you to stay up to date. But I agree. The CPT has lost the starpower it once had when you could consistently watch the best players compete.
I personally like tournaments restricted by region because I don't want every tournament to be the same top players flying in and dominating the whole thing. Last year's CPT was big sleep.
TNS is an amazing online format as an audience member. You’ve got the official broadcast, then half the field live streaming and hanging out during/between and post their matches.
More of that 👍
damn such good points here. i watched so much SFV and figured it was mostly me that changed to only follow your tournament reports now instead of watch every major. they did lose lots of the hype with international competition and players