Building a New DBFZ scene PT.II
how did we determine that the whole dbfz beginner player pipeline was in trouble for the community? Well... to summarize a bit better…
There were few genuinely new players entering events. Instead, they were often filled with players who had hundreds or thousands of hours but had never entered tournaments before or not heavily. that’s not a bad thing per say, but it's a notice of a background detail in the casual investment points due to a specific checkpoint not being in the ecosystem around that level.
Experienced players dominating budding beginner spaces. That discouraged true newcomers from sticking around. This has been a recurring concern among DBFZ players discussing beginner matchmaking and low-rank experiences. there was no space for them, they were apart of higher-level groups just catching happy tail whippings randomly instead of really play-playing ppl at their lvl to have a better output of results.
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Also, there’s little progression from beginner to intermediate to show the self-evolution aspect. To show that you’ve been applying the space to really better your game plan and game sense at a manageable pace. Marvel comp heads thro years of ritual in the MvC Era and their circles took a standing practice as an example yrs ago to develop their next generation of warriors in a proper revolving door. They called this the ‘Rise of Rookies’, something still around today for that scene. this idea for FighterZ, takes some of that past idea and puts it in a new direction for this generation.
A healthy pipeline looks like:
Beginner → Local regular → Eventual Winner → kinda established player → Regional competitor → Community contributor.
If people entered one or two events & then disappeared, that’s a sign that a pipeline wasn't working like that or its actually fracturing. Results, backlash moreso, of a mismanaged ecosystem not housing growing spaces to accommodate the lesser experienced or the mechanically unaware pvp goers.
Next, there’s community dependence on a Discord instead of organic growth. New players increasingly needed discord or mentors, coaches, or private groups just to find fair matches. Healthy games used to usually let newcomers learn through ranked matchmaking, our locals first, or just messing around with a friend. These days in 2026, those aren't all applicable outlets any longer. That was skipped here entirely as DBFZ became less healthy in its ecosystem to present this for harvest.
Other issues were a nepotism factor of the past elite players or ppl of interest having an audience, bringing in these newer ignorant people of their preset dead echo chamber into the fold to potentially pass the ‘metaphorical torch’ to them to resume said echo chambering imposed to the masses or to the shadows. Continuing a corruption effect, if you will.
The next segment is covering that rooted nepotism more closely here and how it’s tied to the destruction of Dragon Ball Fighterz’ core values that it was founded on in NA and EU. Why the regional economy between scenes is actually very different from one another.
Thank you for reading, listeners!
