A complaint concerning the helpers - And why player 2 will lose more often

[Troy88]

Player 1 (the host) has two advantages over player 2. Most of you probably know what they are by now, but I'm going to explain it anyways.

1. The host of a game experiences slightly less lag.
2. The notorious psylocke "trick."

#1 should be obvious, if you lag less you have a better understanding of what is really happening. #2 is what I want to focus on in this discussion. Using a certain key to select his or her character, player 1 is able to consistently get Psylocke as a helper for EVERY single game. This isn't much of a secret anymore, almost every time I accept a match from someone nowadays they somehow "mysteriously" end up with Psylocke.

Player 2, however, cannot perform this trick for two reasons:

1. If player 1 does the "trick" first, player 2's helper will be random.
2. Due to a bug in "quick game," player 2 cannot even use a key on the keyboard to select his or her character (or pick "turbo," for that matter) 90% of the time, and as a result gets a random partner.

Psylocke is the ONLY helper that you can choose. If you use any other key on the keyboard other than the one you use to choose Psylocke, you will get a random character (believe me, I've tried).

Now, why is this such a big deal, you ask? Because Psylocke is without a doubt the best helper you can use on this version of the game. She comes out very quickly (losing in this department only to Blanca), takes moderate damage, can be used to break your opponents supers (which I think is BS to begin with) and if it connects with your opponent on the ground, they will be stunned long enough for you to use a super on them. But let's analyze the other helpers, shall we?

Spiral sucks, plain and simple. I have found no practical use for her whatsoever, in fact, sometimes I go the whole round without using her when I'm unfortunate enough to get stuck with her. If you try to use her when you are getting supered by Ryu, 9 times out of 10 you will teleport right in front of him, and of course this is pointless because you're still gonna get thrashed. If you try to use her during normal gameplay, your opponent will usually respond by either using roundhouse repeatedly (you'll teleport into it, of course), or even worse, they'll cheese you with low punches. Once again, spiral is WORTHLESS. The second most useless helper is Sentinal. If your opponent is actually dumb enough to get hit by him, he does do the most damage out of all the helpers, I'll give him that much. But, he comes out very slowly, and doesn't even shoot his beam until he's halfway across the screen. Anyone with any sense will immediately duck and block. Usually, you don't even need to duck. Sentinal's beam will most likely travel safely over your head. The third most useless helper is Venom. He comes out the slowest of any of the helpers (giving you ample time to super jump to the other side of the screen), and sometimes he doesn't even connect with your opponent. He can however break a super, but not until you've already received 2/3's of the total damage possible. The rest of the helpers are decent, so I have no complaints about them. In fact, Shuma Goraith might actually be as good as Psylocke. But the point is, Player 2 cannot control who he or she gets in the fight, and Player 1 can (and does).

What makes matters worse is all these "dnd fighters" that are out there. Personally, I use dnd when I want to chat, and not fight. When I feel like fighting again, I turn the dnd back off. But there are others that use dnd as a means to guarantee that they are the host of EVERY single game that they play. And of course they will without a doubt use the Psylocke "trick." It's not that they don't want to play (as dnd implies), it's that they like having the advantage. They'll challenge ppl left and right. I can't stand fighting people that do this. Usually, they are decent fighters to begin with, and I'll most likely end up with Spiral or Sentinal. Since I lag more by default (being Player 2), my supers will connect half of the time (if I'm lucky) the other half, they'll simply break my super with Psylocke, and then follow up with a super of their own while I'm stunned. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that if you use Psylocke that you have no skill, because I know that's not always true. But to all you "dnd fighters" out there, I ask you this: do you think your record would be nearly as good as it is if you were player 2 half of the time, and were made to use Spiral while your opponent has Psylocke? I think not.

Player 2 indeed has a disadvantage, and I think something should be done about it. I propose that one of the following four things be done about it.

1. Make it so that your helpers are random regardless of what key you press to choose your character.
2. Make it so that a helper cannot be called out when they are caught in a super (getting stuck with Spiral wouldn't be so bad if your opponent didn't cheese you out of a well-deserved super)
3. Make it so that both Player 1 and Player 2 can choose who their helper is (the only problem with this is, everyone would choose Psylocke and no one else)
4. Make it so that when you are in dnd mode, you can not request or recieve challenges. If you want to fight, you have no business being in dnd mode.