Hikari On The Subject

Teksuo's Return and The DOA 4 Ranking Tournament

Damn, it's been a while since I posted last! What is it, almost a month? Crap. Well, I'm back now, and you better believe, I got stories to tell! I managed to snag a 360 just before christmas, but before I tell you that story, I'd like to tell you something of my recent experience with Dead Or Alive 4.

Over the weekend DOA central hosted it's first Dead Or Alive 4 tournament through XBox Live, and the event, a double elimination ranking tournament, while weird at times, went over pretty well.

First off, the good: Rather than using DOA4's in-game Tournament function through out the event, they paired up participants and asked them to create private lobbies under tournament rules:

1. 3 matches
2. Largest health
3. 60 seconds
4. random stages with danger zones turned on

When all was said and done the participants would send a message to their bracket's host telling them who won. This system while sometimes tedious because you had to wait a while until your next match came around, was more effective than using the tournament function as it greatly reduced the chances of lag during gameplay, because while the game can run fine in small parties, the larger your groups get, the more likely it is, you'll have battles where things chug along at a pace slower than evolution.

In the event that someone didn't show up for their match, or had some other reason for not being able to go on, the person they would've fought either got floated to another opponent, or were given a buy, where they automatically advanced to the next round.

My personal experience in all my matches was good, as everyone I fought had a decent connection, so there was no lag to speak of, and everyone had a pretty good attitude. However, some of the people I talked to between bouts had horrible problems with their games stuttering along during their fights, not being able to hear each other, or even worse, game freezes during their matches. However, some of these problems stemmed from people have compatibility issues with each other's connection, and not necessarily the game or XBox Live itself.

My first match went well, no lag easy going guy, not a sore loser, and made me put a decent amount of work into my win. Once it was all over, I sent a message to my host, and awaited an invite from him back to his lobby.

The host of my bracket was a fair and friendly guy, who took a lot of undue abuse from a few whiny bitches, who would not shut the hell up. He whupped my ass in my 3rd round fight, but it was a good clean fight, he was pretty decent about handing my ass to me, and gave me some words of encouragement before reminding me that I still had a chance to come back.

The Bad: Because of the aforementioned send a message about who won setup, there were a few problems here and there. Some times, Guy A would send a message to the host in my bracket, saying he won, and at the same time, that host will get a message from Guy B saying that *he* won. In one case I observed, the host attempted to square things, by giving both brawlers 1 point and asking them to have one final match. Sounds fair, right? Well, certain whiny bitches who will remain nameless don't seem to think so, and got down right pissy at the very notion.

Because it was a double elimination tournament, if you lost one fight, you went to a losers bracket; which meant that even if you lose once, you still had one more chance to claw, punch, kick, throw and stair surf your way out of the hole and emerge victorious. Though some people went too pleased with it, and referred to it as "...the gayest shit I've ever heard of."

Before I go any further, I'd like to take this moment to say this: It's just. A fucking. Video Game. You're not getting paid. You're not gonna get a prize. Just a rank on a website. That's all. You don't have to get pissy and overly bitchy just because you lost one fight. Oh, and when it's double elimination and you actually HAVE a chance to come back and save yourself? Take the Loser's bracket, win the damn redemption match, and shut the fuck up.

Now, with that said, let's get to the ugly: My 5th and fianl match was against an Ayane player. This is the part where I truly had my ass kicked. After a couple of rounds I realized some of his attack patterns, and started countering and avoiding a little better, but, my poor little Kasumi was no match for his purple haired little demon, and end the end, I still got my butt served to me on a plate. However, again, the guy wasn't a jackass about it and was a nice about making me his whipping boy.

This was my last chance, and it was gone. I was out of the tournament and forced to go on the word of others as the tournament continued on. However, I didn't do to badly. Out of 81 players, I tied with 8 others, including one of the tournament coordinators, for 25, made a couple of friends, and had a good time overall.

Despite the headaches, the waiting, and the bitching and the moaning, I'd say the tournament went good overall, and I look forward to future tournaments by DOA central. But, I do hope that Tecmo does release some patches for the game that help ease the lag issues and allow the tournament function to be used in the future, as it would have greatly alleviated some of the headaches given to the tournament hosts.

Then again, most of them could have been solved if certain players didn't piss and moan like whiny little 4 year olds.


If you'd like to sign up for future tournaments, or see how your friends ranked in the last one, you can head over to doacentral.com.

posted by Teksuo Hikari @ 4:31 PM