voorhese
Smash Master
I also did an interview with the great CunningKitsune for my paper. The Questions are very similar (just more of them, and a little more specific). This is very very informative and I recommend reading the entire thing. Cunning even made the interview pretty for me, so i have no editing to do =)
1. What are your thoughts on the difficulty of the fighting game genre (not compared to anything else)?
When taken to an appropriately-high level, the games of this genre can, for the most part, pose a significant challenge to their players. At higher levels, mistakes in technical execution are caught easily and punished harshly, forcing players to perfect their inputs lest they give their opponents easy openings. Given that glaring flaws in technical execution all but disappear at upper echelons of play, it stands to reason that the major determinant of success at these levels is a combination of attention to detail and the broad term "the mental game." It is this portion of the game that poses the greatest challenges for any aspiring player due in no small part to the large amount of uncertainty and abstract reasoning involved. No longer do situations boil down to a set combination of button and directional inputs and timings; instead, players are required to anticipate and optimally punish the (usually) ever-changing actions of another human opponent. This requires a great deal of knowledge about the game itself, its various options, the viability of these options in any number of scenarios, how to take advantage of these choices, and even when not to take advantage of such choices (for example, holding off on a major read until the end-game portion of the match so that one does not give up an easy opening that one could seize to take the win). Considering all of this, I am of the opinion that the fighting game genre has more than its fair share of challenges; it simply depends upon how far a player is willing to push him- or herself and how attentive to detail he or she is willing to be.
2. How tough is track you set for yourself in school? Care to elaborate?
I certainly have not chosen the easiest of majors. I am pursuing a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) degree in Purdue's professional pharmacy program, one of the most prestigious colleges of pharmacy in the nation, along with a minor in management. Purdue's pharmacy program, like many others, is broken up into two years (currently) of pre-pharmacy and four years (currently) of the professional program. Students apply to the professional program near the end of their pre-pharmacy course of study; they do not merely progress to it. In addition to high grades, admissions decisions consider a number of factors, ranging from extracurricular involvement to prior work experience to letters of recommendation from previous instructors and supervisors. Purdue also receives international attention in this field of study; a number of my classmates hail from Mexico, Canada, and a number of countries in Africa. As such, competition is fierce for a very limited number of positions in the professional program (usually around 160-165 each admissions cycle), and gaining admission grows more difficult each year (the average GPA for my entering class was something like 3.65, and this is trending upwards). The admissions process is such that even possessing a 4.0 does not at all guarantee advancement in the major.
As well, the material itself can be quite challenging, involving a combination of knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines, including chemistry (general, organic, medicinal, and biological), anatomy, physiology, biology, microbiology, and immunology. After learning this large body of material, students must then apply its principles in clinical pharmacy courses, which cover a still larger amount of material.
3. Have you ever been told or heard that the fighting game genre is a joke? If so how often and elaborate if you feel like it.
I personally have not heard such comments about the genre as a whole. I have, however, heard disparaging comments about individual games within the genre, of course. I have found that a significant number of people actually enjoy the genre at face value, but a far smaller segment of that population is able to appreciate the intricacies and difficulties of higher-level play.
4. How much mental engagement in your opinion would you say is needed to play games such as Super Smash Brothers Melee at the competitive level (or the level you would consider “good”)?
While the actual amount is obviously impossible to quantify, I can confidently say that a significant amount of mental effort is required to play such games for even short periods of time at high-level competitive play. Zeroing in on your opponent's weaknesses in time, being aware of and hiding your own weaknesses while flaunting your strengths and neutralizing your opponent's, adequately controlling your positioning on the stage relative to your opponent, and still more all require focus and a conscious awareness in order to be able to manipulate these variables to your advantage and to the detriment of your enemy.
While thinking exhaustively through each and every situation certainly is not feasible in faster-paced games, one must still adequately analyze oneself and one's opponent and the situations presented in-game to be able to seize enough advantages to win (and as players progress in level from local to state to regional to national, their opponents' openings will become fewer, harder to see and take advantage of, and less likely to lead to instant losses). As well, as one progresses, the bar for "adequate" is raised higher and higher, putting still more pressure on a player to be of sound technical ability and possess a strong mentality. Note also that larger tournaments draw larger crowds, and most players (particularly the more popular ones) will have to deal with crowd factors brought about either by themselves or by their opponent; being able to focus in on a match and prevent the various chants, cheers, and jeers from affecting one's game in a high-pressure situation is yet another application of mental engagement and serves to separate experienced players from their lesser counterparts.
5. Can you give some examples on what goes on through your head, or what you would like to be going through your head in order to play even better?
At this point in my career, my mental game focuses largely upon hiding my own weaknesses, seeing and exploiting my opponent's, and sensing (to the best of my ability) when my opponent is feeling nervous or frightened and basing reads, predictions, and decision-making on these feelings. During "neutral" encounters when my opponent and I are not actively engaged and are searching for openings, I tend to integrate information about my opponent's previous defensive options and movements and my previous offensive choices; the sum of this information (and still other pieces of information, such as the opponent's choice of character, my impressions of his or her overall style, and their likelihood of adjustment) leads me to make a decision to approach or stay defensive. This decision is made along with my choice of move, which is also based upon my opponent's prior choices along with my own.
I have enough experience in competitive situations to be able to tune out crowds and prevent myself from getting too worked up over my opponent's skill level and abilities. As far as I am concerned, as a competitor who takes pride in his abilities, I cannot afford nor do I ever give credit to my opponent in my head mid-match (such as agonizing over the quality of his reads, his speed, his technical prowess, how severely he punished my last mistake, and so on). This mindset prevents me from essentially getting inside my own head and downplaying my own skill while amplifying my opponent's; the last thing a competitor wants is to do his opponent's job for him, and this state of mind prevents that by maintaining one's confidence and focus on the match.
6. How much would you say that the pace of the game affects the ability to think about what you stated above?
The game's pace significantly affects one's ability to maintain a sound state of mind, if for no other reason than the mind is being bombarded with more information in shorter spans of time and so is liable to "shut off" inadvertently or become unresponsive. This is one of the dangers of playing beyond one's means; while speed alone is sufficient to intimidate lower-level players and steal easy wins from them, such a style is lacking in effectiveness at higher levels of play, where opponents are better able to keep their cool and see through purposeless movements and their underlying flawed spacing and decision-making. Playing too quickly also has the unfortunate side-effect of putting players into "auto-pilot mode," a recipe for disaster in higher-level play where only active reading and manipulation of the opponent will earn you wins as most every player at that level is technically sound and quite speedy.
7. Do you play chess at all? (The thought required from chess is respected) If so how many moves can you think ahead?
I do not play chess, but I am at least somewhat familiar with it and would like to learn in the future.
8. Do you think that the thought required in the fighting game genre is similar at all to a game like chess? If so do you think that the pace of the game affects how similar the thought required is?
From what general knowledge I do possess of chess, I can see certain similarities between the two. Both games have distinct elements of strategy, and both involve being aware of your opponent's overarching plans, motives, and adjustments, and in turn responding to your foe's decisions as optimally as possible. Similarly, both games require being (ideally) more than a few steps ahead of your opponent in the mental game when played at high levels, considering not only the opposition's current game plan but also any future adjustments or adaptations that he or she makes in response to the success of your reads. In the fighting game genre, the various in-game situations tend to present themselves in quick succession; depending upon how vulnerable one makes oneself in each situation, mistakes made could prove very costly and could occur quite quickly. In a sense, then, the pressures of time are relatively greater in most games in the fighting genre than in chess (although speed chess does markedly introduce this element as well into that game). As well, fighting games also possess the added technical execution barrier, which presents another source of mistakes and offers another means by which players may distinguish themselves (although such distinctions largely vanish at the upper levels).
9. If you were to compare the studying and rehearsal required to succeed in your area of study to what is needed to be successful in fighting games what would be similar (if anything)?
I would say that, more than anything, success in both arenas requires a great deal of dedication. My field of study is particularly prone to academic challenges and other myriad frustrations; one must have the fortitude to push through these obstacles and continue onward, no matter the difficulty. Courses, labs, homework, clinical write-ups, exams, and quizzes all weigh heavily on one's time and on one's psyche, and nothing less than complete dedication to the task at hand will see one through to the end. Success in fighting games requires a similar mindset in that one must be able to deal with set-backs and challenges (lower-than-expected results at tournaments, grueling multi-day nationals, the day-to-day grind of practicing technical execution, and so on) that will inevitably surface. Fighting games also possess their own unique frustrations in that measuring one's progress concretely is often difficult outside of tournament performance. It can also be particularly unnerving when one's regular practice partners are at a higher level and so one is faced with loss after loss, despite the time put in practicing and analyzing the game. Again, dedication is key here, although convincing struggling players of its merits is quite difficult at best; eventually, players will get as much out of their experience as they put in, as with any other endeavor in life.
10. You have written a massive guide on 1 specific character for 1 game, how long did it take you to do so? How much has the game changed since you wrote your guide?
The initial draft of the guide evolved very slowly over the course of a number of months some seven years ago; it is difficult to pin down a more exact figure, but suffice to say that it is significant as I tend to become quite engrossed in my writing, if my previous answers have not already made this clear. Over this span of time, the most significant changes to the game have been the increase in the technical execution ability of the average player, a focus on the more minute aspects of the game, particularly enhanced means of escaping punishment strings and returning to the stage (in league with the increased average technical ability and thus increased average severity of punishes), and an increase in the use of a number of characters once considered incapable of competing with the top-tier fighters of the game.
With regards to the increasing technicality of the game, this unfortunately presents a trap for far too many players who end up over-emphasizing the technical aspect of their game to the exclusion of the development of their mental game, precision, and decision-making. In effect, the modern average player tends to push more buttons than in the past with the same or less regard for sound decision-making, reading, and strategic thinking than in the past; this has only been exacerbated by the plethora of gameplay videos available on YouTube on the like which enable players simply to "copy" the style or choices of their favorite players without understanding the reasoning and logic underlying those decisions. It is clear then that the increased pace of the modern game presents an additional challenge for aspiring players not only in terms of attempting to ease into the speed of a match but also in restraining themselves adequately so that they do not constantly enter "auto-pilot mode" in their tournament matches.
11. What are your thoughts on how much thought is required to play FPS as compared to fighting games? When it comes to the non-thought based skills required for both types of games, would consider it harder to have precise aim, safe strafing, map awareness, and team communication over great spacing, tricky movement, mind games, etc.?
It is difficult to compare the two for me as I have little experience with the first-person shooter genre in general and absolutely no competitive experience with it. However, I will say that I believe FPS's do have their own requirements in terms of thought. The maps are obviously much larger and much more diverse than those in fighters, and matches involve a number of players and (depending on the format) the added element of teamwork beyond working with a single partner. Devising strategies on this basis can therefore be quite challenging, especially when faced with outside factors, such as crowds and nerves. Both genres thus have their own demands, and I personally cannot say for certain that one vastly outclasses the other in this regard.
In a similar line of thought, it is difficult for me to comment on other facets of FPS's as I lack experience with them.
12. Do you personally think that the skills required to succeed in fighting games are usable outside the leisure time we spend it on? If so what skills specifically?
I do believe that skills needed for success in fighters are usable outside of the domain of the games themselves. As previously mentioned, the dedication needed to hone execution and push through frustrations is quite useful in the real world when faced with one's own obstacles. Similarly, a competitive drive to achieve instilled by competing through the games can be useful as well. Building tendencies to analyze situations and think through the steps to a solution are also valuable in any number of exploits in the real world, as is improving skills in considering how to optimize scenario outcomes.
13. Are there social reasons attached to competing in a video game?
Most certainly, particularly for games that lack online play, such as SSBM. Any desires to play with another human must be fulfilled face-to-face, not impersonally over servers. Personally, I have met a large number of people through competing and playing this game, many of whom are still good friends of mine to this day, and I continue to meet new people at each event I attend. The camaraderie builds upon yet extends beyond the game itself; indeed, after tournaments, players get together to eat, converse, and just hang out in general, and I very much prefer this more personable. amicable facet of gaming.
14. Why do you still play a game that’s over 10 years old?
I take great pride in my accomplishments and my abilities, so part of it is maintaining that pride and ensuring that I can still compete with the best of today's players. Still another is to be able to feel the thrill and rewards of victory and to overcome others' expectations and do what they thought you could do no longer. Simply put, winning feels good. Perhaps most importantly, however, I continue to play this game to meet people and to be able to share with them experiences that most others cannot claim; to this day, the mere thought of road-tripping to an out-of-state or out-of-region tournament with a car full of good friends is enough to put a smile on my face.
15. Do you have anything on the subject to add?
At this point, I have said pretty much all that I care to say. I will close by saying that I hope others can one day see the legitimate value in any competitive game (not only fighters) and not be so quick in judging and dismissing this hobby that is enjoyed by an increasing number of people today.
I'm assuming he wants to hear some feedback, but also for people to learn! If Kit didn't want people to get better he wouldn't have wrote a 150+ page guide. hope you liked the read.
1. What are your thoughts on the difficulty of the fighting game genre (not compared to anything else)?
When taken to an appropriately-high level, the games of this genre can, for the most part, pose a significant challenge to their players. At higher levels, mistakes in technical execution are caught easily and punished harshly, forcing players to perfect their inputs lest they give their opponents easy openings. Given that glaring flaws in technical execution all but disappear at upper echelons of play, it stands to reason that the major determinant of success at these levels is a combination of attention to detail and the broad term "the mental game." It is this portion of the game that poses the greatest challenges for any aspiring player due in no small part to the large amount of uncertainty and abstract reasoning involved. No longer do situations boil down to a set combination of button and directional inputs and timings; instead, players are required to anticipate and optimally punish the (usually) ever-changing actions of another human opponent. This requires a great deal of knowledge about the game itself, its various options, the viability of these options in any number of scenarios, how to take advantage of these choices, and even when not to take advantage of such choices (for example, holding off on a major read until the end-game portion of the match so that one does not give up an easy opening that one could seize to take the win). Considering all of this, I am of the opinion that the fighting game genre has more than its fair share of challenges; it simply depends upon how far a player is willing to push him- or herself and how attentive to detail he or she is willing to be.
2. How tough is track you set for yourself in school? Care to elaborate?
I certainly have not chosen the easiest of majors. I am pursuing a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) degree in Purdue's professional pharmacy program, one of the most prestigious colleges of pharmacy in the nation, along with a minor in management. Purdue's pharmacy program, like many others, is broken up into two years (currently) of pre-pharmacy and four years (currently) of the professional program. Students apply to the professional program near the end of their pre-pharmacy course of study; they do not merely progress to it. In addition to high grades, admissions decisions consider a number of factors, ranging from extracurricular involvement to prior work experience to letters of recommendation from previous instructors and supervisors. Purdue also receives international attention in this field of study; a number of my classmates hail from Mexico, Canada, and a number of countries in Africa. As such, competition is fierce for a very limited number of positions in the professional program (usually around 160-165 each admissions cycle), and gaining admission grows more difficult each year (the average GPA for my entering class was something like 3.65, and this is trending upwards). The admissions process is such that even possessing a 4.0 does not at all guarantee advancement in the major.
As well, the material itself can be quite challenging, involving a combination of knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines, including chemistry (general, organic, medicinal, and biological), anatomy, physiology, biology, microbiology, and immunology. After learning this large body of material, students must then apply its principles in clinical pharmacy courses, which cover a still larger amount of material.
3. Have you ever been told or heard that the fighting game genre is a joke? If so how often and elaborate if you feel like it.
I personally have not heard such comments about the genre as a whole. I have, however, heard disparaging comments about individual games within the genre, of course. I have found that a significant number of people actually enjoy the genre at face value, but a far smaller segment of that population is able to appreciate the intricacies and difficulties of higher-level play.
4. How much mental engagement in your opinion would you say is needed to play games such as Super Smash Brothers Melee at the competitive level (or the level you would consider “good”)?
While the actual amount is obviously impossible to quantify, I can confidently say that a significant amount of mental effort is required to play such games for even short periods of time at high-level competitive play. Zeroing in on your opponent's weaknesses in time, being aware of and hiding your own weaknesses while flaunting your strengths and neutralizing your opponent's, adequately controlling your positioning on the stage relative to your opponent, and still more all require focus and a conscious awareness in order to be able to manipulate these variables to your advantage and to the detriment of your enemy.
While thinking exhaustively through each and every situation certainly is not feasible in faster-paced games, one must still adequately analyze oneself and one's opponent and the situations presented in-game to be able to seize enough advantages to win (and as players progress in level from local to state to regional to national, their opponents' openings will become fewer, harder to see and take advantage of, and less likely to lead to instant losses). As well, as one progresses, the bar for "adequate" is raised higher and higher, putting still more pressure on a player to be of sound technical ability and possess a strong mentality. Note also that larger tournaments draw larger crowds, and most players (particularly the more popular ones) will have to deal with crowd factors brought about either by themselves or by their opponent; being able to focus in on a match and prevent the various chants, cheers, and jeers from affecting one's game in a high-pressure situation is yet another application of mental engagement and serves to separate experienced players from their lesser counterparts.
5. Can you give some examples on what goes on through your head, or what you would like to be going through your head in order to play even better?
At this point in my career, my mental game focuses largely upon hiding my own weaknesses, seeing and exploiting my opponent's, and sensing (to the best of my ability) when my opponent is feeling nervous or frightened and basing reads, predictions, and decision-making on these feelings. During "neutral" encounters when my opponent and I are not actively engaged and are searching for openings, I tend to integrate information about my opponent's previous defensive options and movements and my previous offensive choices; the sum of this information (and still other pieces of information, such as the opponent's choice of character, my impressions of his or her overall style, and their likelihood of adjustment) leads me to make a decision to approach or stay defensive. This decision is made along with my choice of move, which is also based upon my opponent's prior choices along with my own.
I have enough experience in competitive situations to be able to tune out crowds and prevent myself from getting too worked up over my opponent's skill level and abilities. As far as I am concerned, as a competitor who takes pride in his abilities, I cannot afford nor do I ever give credit to my opponent in my head mid-match (such as agonizing over the quality of his reads, his speed, his technical prowess, how severely he punished my last mistake, and so on). This mindset prevents me from essentially getting inside my own head and downplaying my own skill while amplifying my opponent's; the last thing a competitor wants is to do his opponent's job for him, and this state of mind prevents that by maintaining one's confidence and focus on the match.
6. How much would you say that the pace of the game affects the ability to think about what you stated above?
The game's pace significantly affects one's ability to maintain a sound state of mind, if for no other reason than the mind is being bombarded with more information in shorter spans of time and so is liable to "shut off" inadvertently or become unresponsive. This is one of the dangers of playing beyond one's means; while speed alone is sufficient to intimidate lower-level players and steal easy wins from them, such a style is lacking in effectiveness at higher levels of play, where opponents are better able to keep their cool and see through purposeless movements and their underlying flawed spacing and decision-making. Playing too quickly also has the unfortunate side-effect of putting players into "auto-pilot mode," a recipe for disaster in higher-level play where only active reading and manipulation of the opponent will earn you wins as most every player at that level is technically sound and quite speedy.
7. Do you play chess at all? (The thought required from chess is respected) If so how many moves can you think ahead?
I do not play chess, but I am at least somewhat familiar with it and would like to learn in the future.
8. Do you think that the thought required in the fighting game genre is similar at all to a game like chess? If so do you think that the pace of the game affects how similar the thought required is?
From what general knowledge I do possess of chess, I can see certain similarities between the two. Both games have distinct elements of strategy, and both involve being aware of your opponent's overarching plans, motives, and adjustments, and in turn responding to your foe's decisions as optimally as possible. Similarly, both games require being (ideally) more than a few steps ahead of your opponent in the mental game when played at high levels, considering not only the opposition's current game plan but also any future adjustments or adaptations that he or she makes in response to the success of your reads. In the fighting game genre, the various in-game situations tend to present themselves in quick succession; depending upon how vulnerable one makes oneself in each situation, mistakes made could prove very costly and could occur quite quickly. In a sense, then, the pressures of time are relatively greater in most games in the fighting genre than in chess (although speed chess does markedly introduce this element as well into that game). As well, fighting games also possess the added technical execution barrier, which presents another source of mistakes and offers another means by which players may distinguish themselves (although such distinctions largely vanish at the upper levels).
9. If you were to compare the studying and rehearsal required to succeed in your area of study to what is needed to be successful in fighting games what would be similar (if anything)?
I would say that, more than anything, success in both arenas requires a great deal of dedication. My field of study is particularly prone to academic challenges and other myriad frustrations; one must have the fortitude to push through these obstacles and continue onward, no matter the difficulty. Courses, labs, homework, clinical write-ups, exams, and quizzes all weigh heavily on one's time and on one's psyche, and nothing less than complete dedication to the task at hand will see one through to the end. Success in fighting games requires a similar mindset in that one must be able to deal with set-backs and challenges (lower-than-expected results at tournaments, grueling multi-day nationals, the day-to-day grind of practicing technical execution, and so on) that will inevitably surface. Fighting games also possess their own unique frustrations in that measuring one's progress concretely is often difficult outside of tournament performance. It can also be particularly unnerving when one's regular practice partners are at a higher level and so one is faced with loss after loss, despite the time put in practicing and analyzing the game. Again, dedication is key here, although convincing struggling players of its merits is quite difficult at best; eventually, players will get as much out of their experience as they put in, as with any other endeavor in life.
10. You have written a massive guide on 1 specific character for 1 game, how long did it take you to do so? How much has the game changed since you wrote your guide?
The initial draft of the guide evolved very slowly over the course of a number of months some seven years ago; it is difficult to pin down a more exact figure, but suffice to say that it is significant as I tend to become quite engrossed in my writing, if my previous answers have not already made this clear. Over this span of time, the most significant changes to the game have been the increase in the technical execution ability of the average player, a focus on the more minute aspects of the game, particularly enhanced means of escaping punishment strings and returning to the stage (in league with the increased average technical ability and thus increased average severity of punishes), and an increase in the use of a number of characters once considered incapable of competing with the top-tier fighters of the game.
With regards to the increasing technicality of the game, this unfortunately presents a trap for far too many players who end up over-emphasizing the technical aspect of their game to the exclusion of the development of their mental game, precision, and decision-making. In effect, the modern average player tends to push more buttons than in the past with the same or less regard for sound decision-making, reading, and strategic thinking than in the past; this has only been exacerbated by the plethora of gameplay videos available on YouTube on the like which enable players simply to "copy" the style or choices of their favorite players without understanding the reasoning and logic underlying those decisions. It is clear then that the increased pace of the modern game presents an additional challenge for aspiring players not only in terms of attempting to ease into the speed of a match but also in restraining themselves adequately so that they do not constantly enter "auto-pilot mode" in their tournament matches.
11. What are your thoughts on how much thought is required to play FPS as compared to fighting games? When it comes to the non-thought based skills required for both types of games, would consider it harder to have precise aim, safe strafing, map awareness, and team communication over great spacing, tricky movement, mind games, etc.?
It is difficult to compare the two for me as I have little experience with the first-person shooter genre in general and absolutely no competitive experience with it. However, I will say that I believe FPS's do have their own requirements in terms of thought. The maps are obviously much larger and much more diverse than those in fighters, and matches involve a number of players and (depending on the format) the added element of teamwork beyond working with a single partner. Devising strategies on this basis can therefore be quite challenging, especially when faced with outside factors, such as crowds and nerves. Both genres thus have their own demands, and I personally cannot say for certain that one vastly outclasses the other in this regard.
In a similar line of thought, it is difficult for me to comment on other facets of FPS's as I lack experience with them.
12. Do you personally think that the skills required to succeed in fighting games are usable outside the leisure time we spend it on? If so what skills specifically?
I do believe that skills needed for success in fighters are usable outside of the domain of the games themselves. As previously mentioned, the dedication needed to hone execution and push through frustrations is quite useful in the real world when faced with one's own obstacles. Similarly, a competitive drive to achieve instilled by competing through the games can be useful as well. Building tendencies to analyze situations and think through the steps to a solution are also valuable in any number of exploits in the real world, as is improving skills in considering how to optimize scenario outcomes.
13. Are there social reasons attached to competing in a video game?
Most certainly, particularly for games that lack online play, such as SSBM. Any desires to play with another human must be fulfilled face-to-face, not impersonally over servers. Personally, I have met a large number of people through competing and playing this game, many of whom are still good friends of mine to this day, and I continue to meet new people at each event I attend. The camaraderie builds upon yet extends beyond the game itself; indeed, after tournaments, players get together to eat, converse, and just hang out in general, and I very much prefer this more personable. amicable facet of gaming.
14. Why do you still play a game that’s over 10 years old?
I take great pride in my accomplishments and my abilities, so part of it is maintaining that pride and ensuring that I can still compete with the best of today's players. Still another is to be able to feel the thrill and rewards of victory and to overcome others' expectations and do what they thought you could do no longer. Simply put, winning feels good. Perhaps most importantly, however, I continue to play this game to meet people and to be able to share with them experiences that most others cannot claim; to this day, the mere thought of road-tripping to an out-of-state or out-of-region tournament with a car full of good friends is enough to put a smile on my face.
15. Do you have anything on the subject to add?
At this point, I have said pretty much all that I care to say. I will close by saying that I hope others can one day see the legitimate value in any competitive game (not only fighters) and not be so quick in judging and dismissing this hobby that is enjoyed by an increasing number of people today.
I'm assuming he wants to hear some feedback, but also for people to learn! If Kit didn't want people to get better he wouldn't have wrote a 150+ page guide. hope you liked the read.
