Dampierre Tournament Status Update: LEGAL

[SolidSonic]

He's not BANNED, he's locked.

Unless Namco's gonna be jerks and say that if you don't preorder the game, then you're not going to play as him ever, there will be a time that he will be seen as tournament legal.

I'm not expecting him to completely break the game like Hilde did.

 

[KowtowRobinson]

lolo told me that he would never have gotten into SC if it weren't for Link. And I believe that was also the case for LinkRKC.

And just for the record, I created this thread knowing full well that he would be banned, I just figured I would play devil's advocate in the first post just for the sake of starting this discussion. It will give new players a heads up instead of surprising them come tournament announcement.

Oh so Sean really started off like that huh? I didn't know that. Wonder what he's been up to lately lol.

 

[Juez]

I don't really see why we should ban him if he is just a DLC character. In marvel they didn't ban shuma or jill and both of them were DLC characters. Right now everyone has the opportunity to get Damp if they wanted too so he should be legal right off the bat.

 

[Master_Thespian]

I don't really see why we should ban him if he is just a DLC character. In marvel they didn't ban shuma or jill and both of them were DLC characters. Right now everyone has the opportunity to get Damp if they wanted too so he should be legal right off the bat.

The difference being that at any time a person decides they want to get Shuma or Jill to train up on them they can. With Dampierre if you miss the pre-order window you're shit outta luck until Namco makes him widely available.

 

[Juez]

I suppose, odds are though they will allow Damp to be availiable to everyone a week or two after the initial release. Pre-ordering might just allow you to get Damp for free while everyone else has to pay for him.

 

[Ooofmatic]

I talked to Daishi-san and Utoh-san at NEC about Dampierre not being tournament legal due to being a tournament exclusive character. They told me not to worry and that they did something to make this a non-issue.

What did they do? Who knows, they wouldn't tell me. But my speculation for bans to be a non-issue is that Dampierre will be available for everyone but only in training mode and perhaps other single player modes. And that the pre-order download would allow him to be used in offline/online Vs. modes.

 

[Grey.Wolf]

This. Can't wait until he is DLC though.

PS: Salty people- Ezio is not getting the banhammer anytime I have say. Deal with it. He's in every version.

I don't understand why NA allows guest characters. Aren't we wasting time trying to train with them, learning their characters, and then losing it all in the next iteration? Doesn't France ban guest characters for this reason?

"But we are not France."

Does that even matter? I don't see the logic in it.

 

[Reave]

I don't understand why NA allows guest characters. Aren't we wasting time trying to train with them, learning their characters, and then losing it all in the next iteration? Doesn't France ban guest characters for this reason?

"But we are not France."

Does that even matter? I don't see the logic in it.

Idk Maybe because there in the game? Oh yea and people like them. Last but not least some people buy the game for the guest character. If you tell me I can't use them because they are a guest all you will get is a fuck you and you would never see me again. Which is counterproductive from what i hear.

 

[Grey.Wolf]

Idk Maybe because there in the game? Oh yea and people like them. Last but not least some people buy the game for the guest character. If you tell me I can't use them because they are a guest all you will get is a fuck you and you would never see me again. Which is counterproductive from what i hear.

Ok, ok, no need to get hostile. We're all in this together. Let's make this the best Soul Calibur to date!

 

[Reave]

Ok, ok, no need to get hostile. We're all in this together. Let's make this the best Soul Calibur to date!

Not hostile just being real.

 

[SomeRandmFreak]

I don't understand why NA allows guest characters. Aren't we wasting time trying to train with them, learning their characters, and then losing it all in the next iteration? Doesn't France ban guest characters for this reason?

"But we are not France."

Does that even matter? I don't see the logic in it.

Only a few characters are guaranteed to be in sequels. Hell, look at the speculation thread. People are worried that Talim, Zas, Setsuka and Yun won't return. Also, guest character movesets aren't always lost. Aeon, for example, has a lot of Kratos' moves as well as few moves from Spawn. I really don't like the fact that France bans guests just because their guests but I won't argue about it now.

 

[Gabedamien]

I don't understand why NA allows guest characters. Aren't we wasting time trying to train with them, learning their characters, and then losing it all in the next iteration? Doesn't France ban guest characters for this reason?

"But we are not France."

Does that even matter? I don't see the logic in it.

The following is just the opinions of a scrub who has never been in a single tournament, so you are free to dismiss it. However, I think it is logical and therefore will be expressing my point somewhat emphatically. Please note that my following post is not in any way to be taken as hostile towards you; you simply bring up an interesting topic which I happen to feel strongly about.

There is no mathematically rigorous way to delineate exactly which qualities should cause a character to be banned. However, speaking in generalities, the only reason any character should ever be banned are because they are unfair to use in a tournament setting.

1. Tournaments are about competition. Competition is about seeing who can play the game the best. Determining who plays the best only works if everyone has equal access or opportunity to studying and/or employing the same tools, so characters limited to a single platform or limited edition or whatever are right out. On-topic, this means Dampierre is out until he becomes universally available/unlockable/downloadable/whatever.
2. Simultaneously, one of the central conceits of a balanced fighting game is that players are free to pick a style (i.e., a character) whose strengths or play style are complementary to that of the player’s. In other words, a fighting game competition is assumed by the general public to offer a certain amount of choice and variety of approach. This feeds not only into the degree to which such a game is enjoyable to play (through richness of gameplay and presentation), but also to creating the opportunity to further stratify players based on skill due to the complexity of analyzing an entire roster, introducing matchup knowledge as one more necessary skill for success, for instance. To that end and others, overpowered characters — those whose inclusion breaks the general game strategy to the point that players are obligated to select them in order to compete — are also eligible for banning.

That’s it. Those are the only two cases in which banning makes sense. Equal opportunity of study, and preservation of the freedom to select between a variety of characters and still remain competitive.

Banning characters because they are not “native” to the Soul Calibur universe makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in my mind. In a tournament setting (which is the only setting relevant to ban discussions), characters are largely reduced to their gameplay, and extraneous details such as context, design, history, background, etc. become secondary considerations (if cared about at all).

Whether a character is expected to return in a hypothetical future installment is completely irrelevant to banning. In a Soul Calibur V tournament, people will be playing SCV. Not SCIV, not SCVI, not any other game; SCV. Whatever the roster is in SCV, that’s what matters.

 

[Ooofmatic]

I don't understand why NA allows guest characters. Aren't we wasting time trying to train with them, learning their characters, and then losing it all in the next iteration? Doesn't France ban guest characters for this reason?

"But we are not France."

Does that even matter? I don't see the logic in it.

Ivy is drastically different in every iteration of the game. Because of that it is safe to assume that she will be drastically different in SC6 as well.

So going by your logic, we should ban Ivy. Because Ivy players spend time learning her, just to lose it all in the next iteration.

I've talked to French players many times about their silly bans. France banned SW because they didn't "fit" in the game. If Vader was a wizard with a two handed sword, and the EXACT SAME moveset, and Yoda was a little old man with a cane for a weapon, also with the same moveset, France would have allowed them. France even banned all three SW stages from tournaments.

From what I hear France is going to allow Ezio, because he fits well in the game, being from the same time period.

I'll never understand their logic for bans. People don't go to tournaments to discuss the story or esthetics. Banning for those reasons is just something that I will never understand.

I'm also very curious to see if France will ban Algol just for being a boss type character or non-traditional weapon using character.

 

[therook]

uhh when hes up for download hes legit so....whats the problem? this shouldn't even be a thread...its common sense

 

[IvyFanboy]

It's not about balance, being DLC, joke character or a boss. The only 3 factors that determine a banning on a character are:

- The character is game breaking (such as an over the top boss like if we got Galactus in UMvC in versus or something simple like using a CAS in SC4 with screwed up hit boxes)
- The community agrees to balance issues, often met with most controversy and discussion (Hilde)
- The character is not fully accessible to all to study on tournament platform


Jill and Shuma are DLC, but we can ALL purchase them on any console. Yoda/Vader were not for some time, making it unfair for single console goers to train. It's without discussion Damp get banned till he's open to all. Ezio is perfectly fine as we will all get him and assuming he doesn't have an over the top mechanic. Even though he rests outside canon, mechanically he fits and that's all that matters.

uhh when hes up for download hes legit so....whats the problem? this shouldn't even be a thread...its common sense

While common sense to most, this just reiterates it and is good for newer competitive players to note and understand why. Sometimes they can get confused why something is banned, such as people feeling Ezio should be. Also sometimes common sense rules aren't established and are assumed and you find yourself at a badly run tournament (MK's PDP tournament is a great example of tournament organizers botching this by using a prepatch build and not banning the exploits fixed in the current patches).

 

[therook]

but isnt it obvious that we have our shit together? i mean really~ but in reality people are still going to play Dampierre regardless what anyone says for the moment he is legit. he just wont be around for day 1 tournaments >_> and thats only for ones without him anyways...

Ezio on the other hand....i dont even understand why someone would even think hes banned...given its common knowledge hes on both systems. he doesn't see broken atm, and if he is to be banned it wouldn't from day one studies....like with SCIV's hilde.

 

[IvyFanboy]

Really besides Damp and CAS I'm hoping there's no ban drama for SC5. But in the case of another Hilde incident, I hope we as a community make the right choice this time. I feel we as a community made the wrong choices for EVO and then Algol was unfairly banned when we corrected our mistake on allowing Hilde.

 

[Grey.Wolf]

Ivy is drastically different in every iteration of the game. Because of that it is safe to assume that she will be drastically different in SC6 as well.

So going by your logic, we should ban Ivy. Because Ivy players spend time learning her, just to lose it all in the next iteration.

I've talked to French players many times about their silly bans. France banned SW because they didn't "fit" in the game. If Vader was a wizard with a two handed sword, and the EXACT SAME moveset, and Yoda was a little old man with a cane for a weapon, also with the same moveset, France would have allowed them. France even banned all three SW stages from tournaments.

From what I hear France is going to allow Ezio, because he fits well in the game, being from the same time period.

I'll never understand their logic for bans. People don't go to tournaments to discuss the story or esthetics. Banning for those reasons is just something that I will never understand.

I'm also very curious to see if France will ban Algol just for being a boss type character or non-traditional weapon using character.

Well said. You're right about Ivy and I never considered that.

Hahaha, that's crazy about their bans. Based on what you said, the Ezio thing starts to make sense in a sorta French aesthetic sort of way.

snip

Way more than what I expected from this community (in a good way). I love these sort of responses. Thanks. You have made me a believer. In competition, the style is far more important than the character design, history, concept, personality, etc.. Sometimes, my OCD tendencies get the better of me.

Also, as you said. We are not competing for the previous or future iterations. We are competing for a single game and that will be SCV now. I forgot about that. It's my old man inside me getting all angry and shit. He just needs to shut up sometimes.

 

[Gabedamien]

[reply to OOF]
Hahaha, that's crazy about their bans. Based on what you said, the Ezio thing starts to make sense in a sorta French aesthetic sort of way.

[reply to me]
...Thanks....

LOL, the French ban policies do seem internally consistent, in that they seek to preserve some kind of perceived series identity. Of course, as we’ve established, this is in service of philosophies that the NA community doesn’t agree ought to be a priority – at least, not in a purely competitive context. They’re pro though, so by all means they can play by their own rules. The only aspect I lament (and that only in the most oblique of ways, given my complete un-involvement) is that it raises questions about the ultimate validity of Americas-vs-Europe competitions, in which someone like RTD will play his main (the Apprentice, SW character) and the French competition won’t have the same experience against that matchup. If he wins, was it unfair? If he loses, does it add insult to injury? Again though, these thoughts hardly keep me awake at night, they merely intrigue me as a thought exercise on these pages.

And thank you for your kind response, I’m glad anytime I can imagine that I might have brought someone more solidly into the SoulCalibur fold. I played SCIV more than any other game in my life, and I am hoping that SCV will redeem the series’s reputation to the public and larger fighting game community a bit.

 

[Dagon]

Tournaments are about competition. Competition is about seeing who can play the game the best. Determining who plays the best only works if everyone has equal access or opportunity to studying and/or employing the same tools, so characters limited to a single platform or limited edition or whatever are right out. On-topic, this means Dampierre is out until he becomes universally available/unlockable/downloadable/whatever.

I think that you make some good points here, but to play devil's advocate...

I main Hakan in SFIV. A lot of the people that I play simply don't know the matchup because he is a highly unpopular character. With your logic, Hakan should be banned because any wins that I rack up may be due to my opponent not knowing the matchup; sure, it's due to his own laziness, but we are still not testing who is the best, as that guy that I eliminate may be able to beat EVERY OTHER CHARACTER perfectly, but simply struggles with Hakan.

Again, just playing devil's advocate here. Counter to my own point would be the fact that knowing matchups is part of skill and since my opponent doesn't know it, I am better than him.