The problem here is that everyone outside the top percent of great players pre-SF4 sucked WAY WAY more before SF4. https://twitter.com/TheAlexValle/status/1260386375775313922

Like from a top player perspective it's like "pfft whatever the guys with decades of experience are still the best" BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY WOULD BE but from a local monster perspective the shift has been huge since then. More people ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO PLAY THEIR GAMES.

In the pre SF4 era, unless you were playing in a hot spot, you could have entire scenes where no one actually knew how to play their game. Or one person trying to get everyone else to play right. The difference between the top and the bottom was ridiculous.

Now Valle's right, anyone who thinks top players weren't god damned monsters back in the day is out of their mind but the overall level of play on average is still much higher now.

Old SF is like the NES or SNES library of player bases people only remember the greatest hits and not the ton of forgettable crap that existed at the same time

I'm not sure how much I'm about the idea though that current players aren't 'stepping it up'. Players are doing what their games reward them for. You got more of a leaning toward lab monsters. If fighting games stayed the same you'd just see different players clawing up instead.

And like the whole thing that "more players doesn't mean better players!" is weird to me when thats exactly why everyone who was good back the turned out good and why the difference between the US and Japan was so huge.

Like if you were mostly playing at Golfland or Chinatown Fair like yeah maybe it felt like people got way more wack all the sudden but everywhere else??? Nah.

Like as someone who was closeish but inconveniently far from a hotspot (CF) like... there was always a huge skill delineation between between locals, people who traveled a lot to CF and people who traveled to majors and while that's still a little bit true it's a LOT fuzzier.

I was never great at any game. Pretty good for a local guy at GG but that's it but even at that level, pre SF4 like... if someone told me they played fighting games and I didn't know their name, I basically knew I could ruin them like 100% of the time in anything I vaguely played

Now? NO fuckin' way I could assume that! People can get so fucking good just from playing online. Top level? Not really, but you can get a huge fucking head start.