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Post by TCM on Sept 11, 2014 14:56:25 GMT -5
The truth hurts sometimes, get over it. Someone hasn't done their homework. Reality television: To further that, both ANW and Sasuke (even Wipeout) aren't just sports TV, they're considered sports entertainment (Wipeout being a sports entertainment game show, while ANW is also credited as having documentary elements, further separating it from reality television. Competitive reality TV? Survivor, Big Brother, I Survived a Japanese Game Show even.
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Post by vaughngk on Sept 11, 2014 15:14:44 GMT -5
Please don't say reality show and Sasuke (or even ANW) in the same sentence. That's a slap in the face to all of the competitors who worked their a**es off to compete in either/both shows. Didn't mean to offend anyone or delegitimize the efforts of those who compete in Sasuke or ANW by calling it a realty T.V. show which has a stigma attached to it sports entertainment is a better way to describe it. Competitors take this tournament very seriously as do I and just wanted let people know that I respect the time and effort they put into this tournament and meant no offense in my post.
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Post by peterpack on Sept 11, 2014 15:22:48 GMT -5
Look it must really be hard to design a course with just the right level of difficulty
They got stage 1 right, 18 finishers is perfect, i would say anything upto 25 finishers is good for stage one. any more and course is too easy
for stage 2, 5 to 8 athletes should be finishing. 2 finished this year, i don't think they were too far off. If they fixed up the metal spin landing issue, they would have had another 2-3 finishers.
for stage 3, if 2 to 3 finish to take on stage 4, thats good. If any of the elite climbers had gotten through stage 2, i think we would have seen it.
so yes the course needed some tweaking, but it wasn't that far off. As for the rope jungle, some athletes showed it could be completed in 10 seconds so i see no problem there.I actually think the distance between the two unstable bridges should have been reduced because it took way too long for athletes to get the momentum to be able to transition or add 5 to 10 seconds to the allowable time.
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Post by tbowman on Sept 11, 2014 22:49:46 GMT -5
Look it must really be hard to design a course with just the right level of difficulty They got stage 1 right, 18 finishers is perfect, i would say anything upto 25 finishers is good for stage one. any more and course is too easy for stage 2, 5 to 8 athletes should be finishing. 2 finished this year, i don't think they were too far off. If they fixed up the metal spin landing issue, they would have had another 2-3 finishers. for stage 3, if 2 to 3 finish to take on stage 4, thats good. If any of the elite climbers had gotten through stage 2, i think we would have seen it. so yes the course needed some tweaking, but it wasn't that far off. As for the rope jungle, some athletes showed it could be completed in 10 seconds so i see no problem there.I actually think the distance between the two unstable bridges should have been reduced because it took way too long for athletes to get the momentum to be able to transition or add 5 to 10 seconds to the allowable time. I don't agree with much of your assessment, but I'm glad you brought up the distance between the two unstable bridges. That was longer than last year. The transition on to the bridges was also more difficult than last year. Flawed course design? Or purposefully making it more difficult?
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Post by jfeathe on Sept 12, 2014 19:23:12 GMT -5
I've stayed out the ANW board entiorely since I wanted to avoid spoilers and watch the season on my own time. I want to warn everyone in advance that my diatribe is not directly a continuation of the above conversation, but is rather a general reply to the "Despise ANW" topic.
I just got done watching this season and I'm appalled by the entire thing.
As a viewer, it was excruciating to get through months of 2-hour long weekly episodes. Even DVRing the show and fast-forwarding commercials, I wasn't able to watch a single episode in one sitting. Once again, countless competitors got introductions far lengthier than their actual runs and the commentary was genuine but grating and tiresome.
That's enough about the poor viewing experience. The real victims this season were the competitors. The hype and confidence they built up during the qualifiers only to destroy it during the worst (by miles) Las Vegas courses was infuriating. ANW is known for shoddy obstacles during qualifying rounds, but the crap they thought up for the actual Finals course was inexcusable. Ruining the first stage with a random "slider obstacle" might have been forgivable if they didn't destroy the second and third stages in the process. The ridiculous Rope Jungle followed by the Double Salmon Ladder directly into the Unstable Bridge has got to be the most unfair and poorly design sequence of obstacles in ANW history. The Butterfly Wall was beyond stupid; it was clunky, crammed in, and very awkward. And don't even get me started on the Metal Spin... how they managed to break something that wasn't broken the first two times around is beyond me. And then came the ridiculous third stage with a dismal first obstacle, an needlessly upgraded second obstacle and then that ridiculous propeller obstacle after the Cliff Hanger.
18/90 for the first stage is too low for such a strong field. There are too many fails on luck-based obstacles (Silk Slider and Cannonball Run) as well on obstacles that are physically almost impossible for several competitors (Jumping Spider).
2/18 for the second stage should have never happened. That was inexcusably poor judgment on the producers and creators and I'm shocked that they would design something so broken and diabolically difficult.
$500,000 or more is routinely given away on other competition shows. Does ANW need to be tough? Yes. Does it need a winner every year? No. Should there have been a winner by now? Definitely. Watching the amazing performances by so many competitors during the trials, I was genuinely pumped for the Finals. Watching victory being snatched away from such loyal and talented competitors almost made me sick. I ended up fast-forwarding through a majority of the final episode because I couldn't stand watching competitors with enough talent to win the whole thing get knocked out not due to lack of talent, but due to the poorly designed course. I view this entire season as one big slap in the face to the many competitors who deserved a fair shot at the $500,000.
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Post by snakeeyes on Sept 12, 2014 20:52:06 GMT -5
Can only put three years of nobody making stage 4 on NBC since they went to Japan for s1-3
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arsenette
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Post by arsenette on Sept 12, 2014 21:15:01 GMT -5
ANW existed before NBC... and Sasuke had 2 tourneys a year. Not a good comparison.
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Post by TCM on Sept 12, 2014 21:21:43 GMT -5
Can only put three years of nobody making stage 4 on NBC since they went to Japan for s1-3 Japan was the Finals the first three seasons, Vegas has been the Finals the last three seasons. That's six seasons/years without at least a Stage 4 appearance no matter how you want to cut it. Using the "on NBC" logic, that would make it four years of no one making Stage 4 since ANW 3's Finals was broadcast on NBC.
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Post by tbowman on Sept 12, 2014 23:12:36 GMT -5
I've stayed out the ANW board entiorely since I wanted to avoid spoilers and watch the season on my own time. I want to warn everyone in advance that my diatribe is not directly a continuation of the above conversation, but is rather a general reply to the "Despise ANW" topic. I just got done watching this season and I'm appalled by the entire thing. As a viewer, it was excruciating to get through months of 2-hour long weekly episodes. Even DVRing the show and fast-forwarding commercials, I wasn't able to watch a single episode in one sitting. Once again, countless competitors got introductions far lengthier than their actual runs and the commentary was genuine but grating and tiresome. That's enough about the poor viewing experience. The real victims this season were the competitors. The hype and confidence they built up during the qualifiers only to destroy it during the worst (by miles) Las Vegas courses was infuriating. ANW is known for shoddy obstacles during qualifying rounds, but the crap they thought up for the actual Finals course was inexcusable. Ruining the first stage with a random "slider obstacle" might have been forgivable if they didn't destroy the second and third stages in the process. The ridiculous Rope Jungle followed by the Double Salmon Ladder directly into the Unstable Bridge has got to be the most unfair and poorly design sequence of obstacles in ANW history. The Butterfly Wall was beyond stupid; it was clunky, crammed in, and very awkward. And don't even get me started on the Metal Spin... how they managed to break something that wasn't broken the first two times around is beyond me. And then came the ridiculous third stage with a dismal first obstacle, an needlessly upgraded second obstacle and then that ridiculous propeller obstacle after the Cliff Hanger. 18/90 for the first stage is too low for such a strong field. There are too many fails on luck-based obstacles (Silk Slider and Cannonball Run) as well on obstacles that are physically almost impossible for several competitors (Jumping Spider). 2/18 for the second stage should have never happened. That was inexcusably poor judgment on the producers and creators and I'm shocked that they would design something so broken and diabolically difficult. $500,000 or more is routinely given away on other competition shows. Does ANW need to be tough? Yes. Does it need a winner every year? No. Should there have been a winner by now? Definitely. Watching the amazing performances by so many competitors during the trials, I was genuinely pumped for the Finals. Watching victory being snatched away from such loyal and talented competitors almost made me sick. I ended up fast-forwarding through a majority of the final episode because I couldn't stand watching competitors with enough talent to win the whole thing get knocked out not due to lack of talent, but due to the poorly designed course. I view this entire season as one big slap in the face to the many competitors who deserved a fair shot at the $500,000. Yep, yep, and yep. There are a few that don't agree with you, but the majority do. Did you copy and paste my diatribe to begin this thread? Just kidding. But yea, your post pretty much echoes my thoughts completely.
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Post by vaughngk on Sept 12, 2014 23:45:24 GMT -5
Can only put three years of nobody making stage 4 on NBC since they went to Japan for s1-3 Japan was the Finals the first three seasons, Vegas has been the Finals the last three seasons. That's six seasons/years without at least a Stage 4 appearance no matter how you want to cut it. Using the "on NBC" logic, that would make it four years of no one making Stage 4 since ANW 3's Finals was broadcast on NBC. You can't compare the first 4 seasons of Sasuke to the course in Vegas a more accurate comparison is Shin-Sasuke which took 5 seasons for somebody to reach stage 4 and 7 seasons till someone won. And the Japanese never got more than 15 to pass the first stage during the era.
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Post by arsenette on Sept 13, 2014 1:27:23 GMT -5
I think the point that comparing the two regardless is not a fair comparison no matter how you stack it. It's like comparing stuff from back in ANC days to now. Who makes the call? Which do people prefer? Why only NBC and not include ANW G4's? etc. etc. It's just a reason to put one down over the other any more than is already done. Serves no purpose.
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Post by Badalight on Sept 13, 2014 10:14:54 GMT -5
I actually like the propeller obstacle. I thought it was pretty creative.
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Post by KinnikuBanzukeÜberAlles on Sept 13, 2014 15:05:14 GMT -5
I think the point that comparing the two regardless is not a fair comparison no matter how you stack it. It's like comparing stuff from back in ANC days to now. Who makes the call? Which do people prefer? Why only NBC and not include ANW G4's? etc. etc. It's just a reason to put one down over the other any more than is already done. Serves no purpose. True, and that's not even taking into account the fact that ANW has 2x, 3x, or 4x more "serious" competitors, in Vegas, than SASUKE has at the real Midoriyama.
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Post by arsenette on Sept 13, 2014 22:39:42 GMT -5
I think the point that comparing the two regardless is not a fair comparison no matter how you stack it. It's like comparing stuff from back in ANC days to now. Who makes the call? Which do people prefer? Why only NBC and not include ANW G4's? etc. etc. It's just a reason to put one down over the other any more than is already done. Serves no purpose. True, and that's not even taking into account the fact that ANW has 2x, 3x, or 4x more "serious" competitors, in Vegas, than SASUKE has at the real Midoriyama. Agreed. By comparison the format is the difference with that. Japan outright rejects upwards to 2-3000 applications each tourney and doesn't have trials the way ANW does. When they Do do trials it's elimination style and they have no qualms in having 1 or even 0 entries via the trials unlike ANW where you are guaranteed clears with each city regardless if they failed the Finals or not. The focus of the show is also different. So yeah it's impossible and unfair to compare the two.
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Post by gamer2k4 on Sept 16, 2014 14:13:55 GMT -5
People who complain about the difficulty of the course are missing out on the entire point of Sasuke/ANW. I'm going to trust the wiki here, which says that 85 to 90 of the Sasuke competitors tend to be eliminated in the first stage. Yes, half of them are joke entries, but the rest are still the best course runners in Japan. It also looks like we average about one finalist per Sasuke (I think I counted 32 total), and that's including eleven in the first three competitions, arguably before they got a handle on the difficulty.
Ninja Warrior is supposed to be hard! The fact that only three people have won over the course of 17 years and 30 competitions (33 including ANW) is exactly what makes the show so special. I don't want a Stage 3 clear to ever become routine, because that ruins the point of the show.
I've always said that one of the things that makes Ninja Warrior so special is how not only are there years between victories, but the viewers and fans are okay with that. Complaining about the course being hard is complaining about the central theme of Sasuke.
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Post by kangaroo on Sept 16, 2014 22:57:51 GMT -5
People who complain about the difficulty of the course are missing out on the entire point of Sasuke/ANW. I'm going to trust the wiki here, which says that 85 to 90 of the Sasuke competitors tend to be eliminated in the first stage. Yes, half of them are joke entries, but the rest are still the best course runners in Japan. It also looks like we average about one finalist per Sasuke (I think I counted 32 total), and that's including eleven in the first three competitions, arguably before they got a handle on the difficulty. Ninja Warrior is supposed to be hard! The fact that only three people have won over the course of 17 years and 30 competitions (33 including ANW) is exactly what makes the show so special. I don't want a Stage 3 clear to ever become routine, because that ruins the point of the show. I've always said that one of the things that makes Ninja Warrior so special is how not only are there years between victories, but the viewers and fans are okay with that. Complaining about the course being hard is complaining about the central theme of Sasuke. I am trying to figure out how it is NBC/G4 fault the competitors failed to clear stage three in Japan since they did not build any the obstacles in Japan only sponsored people to go to Japan
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Post by jfeathe on Sept 17, 2014 14:33:16 GMT -5
People who complain about the difficulty of the course are missing out on the entire point of Sasuke/ANW. I'm going to trust the wiki here, which says that 85 to 90 of the Sasuke competitors tend to be eliminated in the first stage. Yes, half of them are joke entries, but the rest are still the best course runners in Japan. It also looks like we average about one finalist per Sasuke (I think I counted 32 total), and that's including eleven in the first three competitions, arguably before they got a handle on the difficulty. Ninja Warrior is supposed to be hard! The fact that only three people have won over the course of 17 years and 30 competitions (33 including ANW) is exactly what makes the show so special. I don't want a Stage 3 clear to ever become routine, because that ruins the point of the show. I've always said that one of the things that makes Ninja Warrior so special is how not only are there years between victories, but the viewers and fans are okay with that. Complaining about the course being hard is complaining about the central theme of Sasuke. Should Ninja Warrior be difficult? Yes. Should any stage, including the First Stage be a guaranteed clear for a good competitor? No. Unfortunately, I felt that the issues with this year's ANW went well beyond the general difficulty of the course, even though difficulty was a factor. The major difference between Sasuke and American Ninja Warrior comes with the composition of the competitors. It's been said many times, but Sasuke is more or less 25% pure joke/celebrity competitors, 50% everyday Joes with little or no chance at clearing the First Stage, and 25% serious contenders. ANW is 80-90% comprised of competitors who have beaten out 100s of other strong competitors in trials, with 10-20% being wildcards (and those wildcards almost always have exhibited some sort of success on the course). To have Sasuke-like clear statistics on the ANW course should indicate something has gone very, very wrong. The difficulty was ramped up too much from the previous ANW, but the major issue was that the difficulty almost exclusively stemmed from poor obstacle design/placement in the course. Should the third obstacle of the First Stage be a nail-biting crap shoot? Should 3 extremely intensive upper-body obstacles be placed back to back in the Second Stage especially when the first of those obstacles was beyond clunky? Should the Metal Spin, which historically has had less than a handful of dismounting incidents since way back in Sasuke 14, suddenly become impossible to land? Should a ridiculous and awkward start to third stage along with yet another crap shoot obstacle following the Cliff Hanger be the intention of the third stage? To all those questions, I say a big no! The course should naturally evolve, but when that evolution turns from keeping competitors on their toes to destroying any chance of clearing, then things need to be reevaluated. I hope they revert back to the ANW 5 course with some serious consideration paid to the luck-based obstacles.
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Post by arsenette on Sept 17, 2014 18:34:59 GMT -5
The major difference between Sasuke and American Ninja Warrior comes with the composition of the competitors. It's been said many times, but Sasuke is more or less 25% pure joke/celebrity competitors, 50% everyday Joes with little or no chance at clearing the First Stage, and 25% serious contenders. ANW is 80-90% comprised of competitors who have beaten out 100s of other strong competitors in trials, with 10-20% being wildcards (and those wildcards almost always have exhibited some sort of success on the course). Agreed much on this especially since in ANW the higher rated shows and the ones that most casual people are invested in watching are the prelims where the "joke" competitors come out. When Vegas comes out and those lucky to have passed both rounds of qualifying get there, it's a bloodbath and they turn off the television to log onto Facebook to ream NBC for changing the format. Sasuke's selection process is much different and has the mix that people prefer. Those who are strong will get past the first stages and make it competitive in the 3rd. ANW lines them up just to knock them all down.
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Post by tbowman on Sept 18, 2014 13:23:58 GMT -5
People who complain about the difficulty of the course are missing out on the entire point of Sasuke/ANW. I'm going to trust the wiki here, which says that 85 to 90 of the Sasuke competitors tend to be eliminated in the first stage. Yes, half of them are joke entries, but the rest are still the best course runners in Japan. It also looks like we average about one finalist per Sasuke (I think I counted 32 total), and that's including eleven in the first three competitions, arguably before they got a handle on the difficulty. Ninja Warrior is supposed to be hard! The fact that only three people have won over the course of 17 years and 30 competitions (33 including ANW) is exactly what makes the show so special. I don't want a Stage 3 clear to ever become routine, because that ruins the point of the show. I've always said that one of the things that makes Ninja Warrior so special is how not only are there years between victories, but the viewers and fans are okay with that. Complaining about the course being hard is complaining about the central theme of Sasuke. Should Ninja Warrior be difficult? Yes. Should any stage, including the First Stage be a guaranteed clear for a good competitor? No. Unfortunately, I felt that the issues with this year's ANW went well beyond the general difficulty of the course, even though difficulty was a factor. The major difference between Sasuke and American Ninja Warrior comes with the composition of the competitors. It's been said many times, but Sasuke is more or less 25% pure joke/celebrity competitors, 50% everyday Joes with little or no chance at clearing the First Stage, and 25% serious contenders. ANW is 80-90% comprised of competitors who have beaten out 100s of other strong competitors in trials, with 10-20% being wildcards (and those wildcards almost always have exhibited some sort of success on the course). To have Sasuke-like clear statistics on the ANW course should indicate something has gone very, very wrong. The difficulty was ramped up too much from the previous ANW, but the major issue was that the difficulty almost exclusively stemmed from poor obstacle design/placement in the course. Should the third obstacle of the First Stage be a nail-biting crap shoot? Should 3 extremely intensive upper-body obstacles be placed back to back in the Second Stage especially when the first of those obstacles was beyond clunky? Should the Metal Spin, which historically has had less than a handful of dismounting incidents since way back in Sasuke 14, suddenly become impossible to land? Should a ridiculous and awkward start to third stage along with yet another crap shoot obstacle following the Cliff Hanger be the intention of the third stage? To all those questions, I say a big no! The course should naturally evolve, but when that evolution turns from keeping competitors on their toes to destroying any chance of clearing, then things need to be reevaluated. I hope they revert back to the ANW 5 course with some serious consideration paid to the luck-based obstacles. We have a winner. Great post. By far the best post in this thread. Well said.
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Post by RobbyMac on Sept 22, 2014 16:33:32 GMT -5
I'm sorry the course should not get easier. Competitors should train harder. The only things that were dumb were landing pads (stage 1) falling ropes (stage 2.... your strength should defeat you not a falling obstacle), height of obstacles (either adjust it height accordingly or just make it lower and further away, it was a good idea imo) and a trampoline on stage 3.... Looks like they may make the time limit on stage 4 like 37 seconds or something too
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