The International Interviews: #10 Test

[ikodomo]

As my memorable one year stay here in Korea comes to a close, I made plenty of friends and participated in a couple of Korean DOA competitions. After playing here for such a short time, I believe I improved significantly in my overall game and my thanks goes to the players here in Korea. However, I was missing something significant. I did not want to leave Korea without completing a certain task. No, it's not getting drunk from Soju. Oh my! What a thrilling experience that turned out to be though! I did not want to leave the country without interviewing the one individual players all around the world identify as one of the best, if not the best DOA player to ever come out of Korea. With the help from my friend, @FrogSoy (Thank you with the Translation too!), I was able to get in contact with Test. World-renowned, Test gives his insight on one of his memorable moments, tier lists and the current Korean DOA scene.

What is your name and gaming alias?

Hello Everyone!

My name is Kyuhwan Han From South Korea and my Gaming name is Test.


Who are your main characters in DOA5LR?

Christie and Zack


How long have you been playing DOA casually and competitively?

I started DOA in 2005 and have been playing ever since.

I entered many DOA4 Tournaments and I got Minister of the Ministry of Culture Awards and casted some gaming broadcasts in 2008. After that I went to play Guitar Hero and was part of the Guitar Hero scene back then.

After a few years later, I heard that DOA5 was going to be released in 2012.

I have returned back to the DOA scene and have been playing since.

And I did Guitar hero and Dead or Alive Both sides Registered to an authorized player.

Reference Source - Broadcasting to Ongamenet Footage​

What do you typically do in order to prepare for an upcoming tournament?

South Korea is growing up in a bad environment for DOA tournaments.

So I must go to Japan and I participated in the Japanese DOA Competition.

This being so, I was able to compete with many Japanese players.

Japan's infrastructure is always great and the Arcade center is very active.

This means that the arcade center are the nurseries for promising DOA players.

But, we in Korea don’t have these venues and we play under a very bad environment.

Koreans don’t have that much ability yet. We are short of good players.

I shared DOA info's with the Japanese top players and I connect some Korean top players with practice and carry on my DOA skills.

But you know that this is hardly enough to win a tournament.

So I needed to be different from the other players.

I'm training hard for body vision+reaction velocity.

Here are a couple of examples, hmm..

Cutting hold on enemy's second Strike and not missing any punishes.

Working hard on overall defensive skills.

Strike skill are anyone's easy and fool-proof.

I emphasize on one thing. 'Make some different'

However,I dispose of defense skill in my own way.


What are the tournaments you have attended and accomplishments you have had in DOA5?

1st Place - Cafe ID Tournament (Korea)

1st Place - Microsoft Tournament (Korea)

1st Place - Official Tournament 2012 Qualifying (in Korea)

1st Place - TGN Playse #1 Qualifying (in Japan)

1st Place - TGN Playse #1 Tag Tournament (Japan)

1st Place - Official Tournament 2013 Grand Final (Japan)

Official Tournament 2013-2014 (Japan) Qualifying

Fighting Carnival 2014 (Japan) Qualifying

2nd Place - Official Tournament 2012 (Japan)

2nd Place - TGN Playse #1 Grand Final (Japan)

2nd Place - TGN Playse #3 Grand Final (Japan)

2nd Place - Id Global Tournament (Korea)

2nd Place - 3v3 Enjoy Tournament #1 (Japan)

TGN Playse - DOA5 - Top 8 - test team vs 輝rock

TGN Playse - DOA5 - Top 4 - 遊 vs test team

​

Which version of DOA do you like and hate the most? Why?

My favorite version is the Original DOA5 and i hate DOA5U the most.

Original DOA5 is not high damage and lucky situations are not created in my opinion in DOA. Hold is a 'little insurance'

But when DOA5U was released, Hold DMG was more significant,

sideparts(Hold) are changes Main DMG source. What...?

Some people use this system and keep going press hold and hold.

This playing of an attitude brings me to a stand.

Lucky Holds are a make freak and out of senses situations. It sucks. DOA5 is a only nice balance keeping the triangle system. So, I love original DOA5.


Is there anything you would like to see changed or added in DOA5LR such character balances, more characters or stages?

Right now I think DOA5LR Character balance is not bad.

Before Team Ninja always released a patch up,

It seems to be that they were going good in handling the situation;

But, some characters have overall privilege.

I think strong characters need few nerfs

while other low tier characters need buffs.

It will be a more perfect balance for Last Round.


Do you watch any of the US DOA tournaments? What do you think of the players? Play style?

I choose American and Europe players.

U.S - Kwiggle

Kwiggle has a very reckless style.

Nice attack variations and has a good mind game.

He makes unforeseeable circumstances.

I want to play with him.


Netherlands - Gehaktbal

He has a nice defense technique

He is knowledgeable when it comes to how to react against an enemy's moves.

Gehaktbal has a good body vision and reaction velocity and also has a broad range of experience.


Do you have a personal tier list on DOA5LR? What would it be?

Before talking about the DOA Character tier list, I will tell you one by one all of characters are strong.

Why is then that some characters are considered low tier?

Because they do not have advantage or have some handicaps.

So, I am not going to categorize the tier detail.

In my mind, I will say only my subjective top and low tiers.

S - Gen Fu , Christie, Hayate

C - Raidou, Ein, Honoka


Which person gave you the best competition thus far?

I think my best match up was in TGN Playse #1 Grand Final against Katsuninken (Hayabusa)

From the first steps, I was in a crisis. When it was in the 3rd round situation, I kept my mind in control. In the final round, i needed only a dot of health to win. So much to one's regret of losing to him.

At that time, people said, "this is the Greatest match I have ever seen!"

All of the people made a lot of noise and the stadium blew up!

look at this

TGN Playse #1 - Test Vs Katsuninken

Do you have a Twitter, Facebook or Youtube channel people can follow you on?

Twitter - https://twitter.com/testteamhero

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/testteamhero

Blog (KR) - http://testteam.co.kr/


Any messages or shout outs you would like to say to anyone that reads this?

Thanks for reading!

I want more international competitions have cultural exchanges with players from all over the world. Have a good DOA Life!


Special thanks : thanks to interview 'A1R GEAR' and my one and only best Partner and friend 'Soy'

 

[Darkslay]

Dang, i actually remember hearing this name back when there was a scene for Guitar Hero, how funny is that? Now we meet again in a completely different environment.

I took what he said about his scene in Korea to heart, since this is the same way i feel about the community in my country, there are tournaments and there are offline meetings but level hasn't actually reached that point yet, where you can actually call it “competitive”, however the drive is there and hopefully it'll continue to grow, same as the Korean community.

Great interview.

 

[Force_of_Nature]

Nice little interview. I was wondering when this dude was gunna get his turn. His Christie and Zack tears it up! Very solid player. Fighting the Japanese players was a smart move for getting that boost in his play.

I love the efforts that Test makes within his FGC to level up DOA. DOA5LR I feel in particular can be way too underrated & underappreciated at times. Can be really difficult at times to find people that know what is required to level up at DOA and actually act upon the knowledge required to level up. I also agree that hold damage should be as minimal as possible from characters that don't specialize in holds.

Would really love to see how Test does against Western players. Kwiggle & Gehaktbal are great choices.

 

[iHajinShinobi]

Great interview, but I am actually in disagreement about the hold damage. It was increased to cater and balance out the increase in the life deficit from Vanilla to Ultimate/Last Round.

DOA5's life bar was 270, so damage in general fit as it was in that game to cater and balance out the life deficit. That includes overall combo damage, environmental damage, throw and hold damage. With DOA5 Ultimate, Team Ninja changed the life deficit to 300, that also means that there would need to be an increase in damage to balance out the increase in the life bar.

Wall slams and wall combo damage was increased by another 5 points (5+5) and throw damage was also increased. Same for overall strike damage (varies) and hold damage.

So say if the life increase went up to 300 from DOA5 to DOA5U/LR and damage scaling remained as it did in Vanilla. The game would take too long to end and all the whinning everyone did about playing on Smallest or Small life instead of Normal life would've been worse. And in this case, not made any sense anyway as it wouldn't have made any difference. It would've been very poor in-game design. Especially in a game where we technically have the comeback/revenge factor into it now. The life bar and damage is balanced out just fine.

Weaker characters would benefit even less.

There is a factor of luck in every game. Doesn't mean the actual skill deserves less reward for being right either, though.

The life bar in previous DOA titles was 240 from what I remember, and hold damage was high in older games as well as strike damage.

 

[Matt Ponton]

Great interview, but I am actually in disagreement about the hold damage. It was increased to cater and balance out the increase in the life deficit from Vanilla to Ultimate/Last Round.

This is incorrect, though ending point is moot. It was increased to balance having more recovery in critical.

 

[iHajinShinobi]

I am not incorrect in what I said about the life increase. The major difference in the recovery is on low hold. The difference in damage overall is more obvious than that.

 

[WAZAAAAA]

I'm training hard for body vision+reaction velocity.

Here are a couple of examples, hmm..

Cutting hold on enemy's second Strike and not missing any punishes.

I've watched some of his videos and it's true. The dude's reactions are freaking BOTLIKE, maybe he should play Hayabusa instead because of the high damage holds lol. Never do strings against this guy lmao!

How exactly does he train such a strong "string recognition" in DOA?

 

[petopia]

Because we already know what other 3d fighter is the best in Korea. Can i say T*****n Crash.

 

[Force_of_Nature]

I've watched some of his videos and it's true. The dude's reactions are freaking BOTLIKE, maybe he should play Hayabusa instead because of the high damage holds lol. Never do strings against this guy lmao!

How exactly does he train such a strong "string recognition" in DOA?

You go into the lab and practice recognizing all the strings in the game until it's second nature. Or you simply play the game a shitload against the cast.

 

[WAZAAAAA]

I'm gonna extend the interview just a little bit lol. This is what I asked on his blog:

Fast reactions! How do you train them?

The answer:

because It's affected to other game (Rhythm games)
it's helping for insight training.
also, Doa is same things. be at the same of doing.
The Bottom line is to see the Enemy's attack.

(http://testteam.co.kr/3145856)

 

[Force_of_Nature]

I'm gonna extend the interview just a little bit lol. This is what I asked on his blog:
The answerhttp://testteam.co.kr/3145856)

That's smart on Test's part to exercise that principle. That can apply to any FG, and can pretty much apply to your life. If you don't see and anticipate your enemy's attacks, you will lose. Simple as that. Maybe not right away, but down the road you'll eventually lose somewhere.

 

[WAZAAAAA]

2nd Place - Id Global Tournament (Korea)

hey found footage of this IGT 2015, Grand Final at 1:00:06

there's also a no commentary version lol