Strategy Posting 101

[Awesmic]

No, this thread is not about me giving a guideline to posting strats, 'cause I'm an amateur when it comes to posting them myself. I made this thread because as of recently, some members from DOAW really want to start posting strats, but are hindering themselves for the following reasons:

1) They want help, yet some of them don't want any guidance from the more experienced players because A) They're given the impression they'll be "stealing" or "borrowing" other people's strats B) They're given the impression the experienced players will abandon them if they don't catch on or understand what strategies they're posting.

2) Some of them got the wrong impression about a few of you and judged the whole lot as selfish players out for themselves. And because of this, they are not only having second thoughts in visiting this site, they A) want to do things on their own B) want to learn from each other on their own site.

Because of this, I thought that the best thing I could do was get some guidelines to posting strats from those of you who really know what you're doing. Preferably in your own words, unrecited, unscripted, and down-to-earth so I can come up with something basic to help these guys out, if not you guys jump in the site and help 'em out by your own whim so you can convince them that you guys are in fact not the "selfish" people they perceive you to be.

I know I don't post regularly here like most of you, and this might sound a bit sudden and strange, but you guys are the only ones I know that can pull this off. I really want these guys to know y'all are cool people to talk with.

 

[LivingShadow]

-snip-

If I read your post right you're asking how people should provide critique to other/new players. I'll be using my experience in the Melty community as examples since I don't have much DoA background. I guess anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt since I can't say I'm a top player.

1: This isn't necessarily a problem of not wanting to copy another player so much as wanting to be unique. To a point, it can be a good thing because innovation is what makes matches exciting. Seeing new technology for the first time is always exciting especially when it works. So if someone posts something crazy, don't discount it at first glance and try it out. Their idea just might work.

However, it is important that they know that certain things are just a bad idea. When they do post something that is obviously bad, prove why it is a bad idea instead of just dismissing it as bad. If you do disprove something, suggest a few alternatives that they could try.

You also want to be patient with newer players, they don't know the mechanics as well as you do. Try not to get frustrated if they make the same mistake several times or don't know the basics, it's part of learning. A FAQs thread or Wiki is generally a good idea so you can point them to it if their question is answered there, just be sure to be polite about it.

In the Melty community, I was practically the only advocate of C-Ryougi's 421 series and at least a year ago I intentionally stayed away from the tk combos (because I couldn't do them at the time). Eventually, after a lot of research I helped explain an ambiguous crossup off of 421c, determined (with the help of Shlowpoke's combo vids) how to use multiple 421c in order to do a full guard break string, and found a more or less safe usage of 421b in blockstrings. Eventually after learning other combos enough I decided to add the tk combos to my game and succeeded because of the practice I had in the rest of the game.

2: There's not really much we can do about impressions. But even if we aren't well liked we can provide footage for them to learn from. Tutorial videos and the like. There's no problem if someone doesn't want to join a site, and there's no reason to force them. We all have the (more or less) same resources. I have no problem for others to just read my material while discussing it elsewhere.

When posting strats myself, I tend to try to provide them in as clean a formatting as I can. Tables and lists help. Try to provide as much data as possible (why a combo is good, situations where it would be better than established ones, reasons to use certain setups).

In order to provide responses to strats I'd have to actually read said strats. The responses vary depending on what they're attempting.

 

[Berzerk!]

1) The days of keeping strats and therefore "stealing" them are over. Every big match can go on YouTube. You can't hold back at tournaments. Its also true that in a small community its more important to share info in order for everyone to get better.
If the standard of play generally is high, there's a much better chance of people discovering, using, and yes countering new strats.

I certainly agree with LivingShadow that its best to avoid simply calling an idea "bad" and offering no context or explanation (this goes for all forms of forum posting!). Its also important to be polite, and instead of saying "your idea is stupid", use terms such as "unfortunately, what you suggest does not work because...[reasons]"

Seems basic but often forgotten.

2) This is definitely a misperception, if one looks through the forum and the basic strat threads, its a pretty open and learning-oriented position people take. I'd suggest encouraging people to take a second look and ALSO post on their own forum. Don't see why there should be an us or them thing, but this site has some good strategy posts already, so why not read them?
People have taken the time to do this out of generosity of their time that is given to the community.

Finally, its good to discover things for oneself but for things that are already written about and known its patently unnecessary to reinvent the wheel and people will get better and have more fun faster if they take in the lessons that are already out there, but more power to anyone wishing to build on that.

Certainly, DOAD has some changes and slightly new character strategies to discuss that haven't been explored and anyone can provide this info.