So uh, hey...

redpanda

redpanda

[08] Mercenary
Hey guys, I've been lurking a bit here for the past week or so, and decided to join 'cos I have a few questions, and this seems like a pretty cool community. First off, an introduction of sorts: I've been playing Soul Calibur since Soul Edge came out. I remember it as an awesome game, but I tried to play it a few months ago and it was so difficult it made me cry. It turns out, it wasn't that great of a game (yeah, that's arguable), but still really cool for its time. Then some time later I got SC II for the Gamecube, which was really fun. And then finally after playing SC IV on some friends' consoles, I took the plunge and bought it myself. It's fun a lot of times, and really, really aggravating a lot of times as well.

After I started to play online, and subsequently got my ass kicked in just about every match, I decided to learn the game a bit more. Eventually that brought me here. Hopefully it's cool if I ask some questions. ^ ^;

First off, how do you even begin to start learning a character? Do you learn some useful combos, or go through their entire moveset, memorise all of the framedata, or what? How involved is it? I've seen you guys talking about moves for a bunch of different characters, and it's rather daunting. Mitsu's 2B may be something to watch out for during a match, but then so is Astaroth's 1A, and Tira's 44K, and on and on.... And then all of those moves have distinct properties, like the animation, and specific framedata... how does any one remember all of this, especially under pressure? o.O

What exactly do you do in battle? Do you have a set of opening moves you like to mess around with, or do you see what your opponent is doing first? Is there anything that's really stupid to do?

Uhm, I guess that's it for now. It seems like a ton of memorisation, but I'm a bit eager to not lose every single online match I play (there's not really a local scene around here). >.> Thank you in advance for any answers, I really appreciate it!
 
First of all welcome to 8wr.

To try to give some answers to your questions, let's try specifically what does one do with all this information to begin. The question of how to learn everything is way to broad so I'm going to suggest to start with that you just ignore the specifics outright.

Context is really important when looking at lists of data. Increasingly information compiled on game sites is getting to be more and more meticulous and it really can be useful. However understanding how the game works in general is a much better starting point, because all the combo lists, frame data and what have you won't do you much good if you don't understand why they should matter and what it is you are looking for. Experience is really key to this, although talking to people who already have understanding is useful as well.

Before you learn a character you want to know basics, how do mid/low/high/SMid/Slow work? How do you move and what is the purpose. Understand general game flow, that usually when you've been hit by an opponent's High or Mid, or been knocked down you are probably not ok to attack, but that if you've been hit by a low or blocked an attack you likely are. Once you understand these things it is probably helpful to understand different move purposes, what is an interrupt, what are good options against a defending opponent, what moves are good for "punishing", which can be used to control opponent's movement, etc.

After you get that you can try to break down a characters moves into what your options are to fulfill the different roles. This is the step that the data starts becoming useful, it can help suggest what the benefits and downsides of certain moves are with respect to each other, when coupled with ones own experience with the moves. Once you understand your own character you can try to understand how other characters interact with yours and why sometimes moves working well against one character, might be less effective than others against a different character.

In concluding this post I'd like to reiterate that there is an awful lot to learn and also say that there is an inter-relatedness between one's own experience, the data and the human element that takes simultaneous effort on all fronts to better come to terms with.

redpanda said:
Do you have a set of opening moves you like to mess around with, or do you see what your opponent is doing first? Is there anything that's really stupid to do?
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Now I'll double post to try to answer this briefly. Part of whether you start the fight aggressively and whether you back off has to do with your character and what you are up against. Good players are probably(not always) going to take the initiative at least until they have the lead in the round, which could force the opponent to overstretch themselves trying to catch back up. They may continue pressing whenever they can find an advantage regardless, depending on their character and disposition. Having said that, it is almost never a bad idea to simply backstep cautiously at the beginning of a fight and get your offense started from a less well defined time and place.
As for stupid things to do? Don't do moves that when they miss, miss spectacularly. New players for example will latch on to Kilik's 6A+B for some reason. If someone sidesteps that move they might as well be able to eat your soul as much as damage as you're about to take for missing. Don't attack ALL the time and don't guard ALL the time, there is a balance between the two that has to do with what is happening at any given moment of play. Trying to grasp the flow in the moment can be a difficult, but recognizing that it is there is a good first step.
 
Suirad pretty much covered what I would have answered with and then some.

However, I'll add a bit to the second question:

When thinking about "A certain set of opening moves," I can say that yes, I do have a certain amount of things I do with each character I play. However, this almost always depends on which one I'm playing, and what matchup I'm fighting against. For example, with Setsuka, (I use her as an example because I have the most knowledge in her) when I start a match, there's a limited set of tools I can use at the range the match starts at. Two of her better tools at that range are 66A and 33B. With that in mind, I look at my opponents tools. If I judge them to be better (which isn't often considering how good 33B is) I'll probably wait, start moving, and see what they do. If I judge them to be worse, I'll probably make some kind of aggressive play. However, playing like that also does come down to knowing who you're about to fight, as well. If I know the guy I'm fighting is a player who loves to be aggressive, I might start the game by baiting them into a counter hit. Suirad is right when he says backstep is never a bad choice, though, as it really isn't. It's pretty much the safest option for every character.

So yes, It's good to know your character's more powerful tools at that range, as well as your opponents, so you know what kind of advantage or disadvantage you have at the start.

Anywho, welcome to 8way, hope you have a good time here!
 
well, this will sound horrible in comparison to those two... hmmm... i prefer to make things less daunting anyway...
...the way i learnt was by learning from losses... taking the opponents strategy and combos in my head, learning it and the reasons i lost and why it was used, and then practicing against it, perhaps trying to improve it and seeing if its as good as it could be... that way i gained a good understanding of how to use each character, and how to defend common strategies, and from that you eventually get deeper learning where not to attack, and where theres crouching frame in an opponents move and... what not to retaliate with and stuff... and once youve got all that, you can expand on it yourself ^^
it feels a lot more natural to me that way than learning a list of numbers and weighing them all up in the heat of a match... ive never really even looked at frame data (except to find out whether something has positive frames or not)
 
I suggest you learn Siegfried - he's a good starting character, our soul arena is pretty friendly and I just finished a guide for beginners (subtle advertising) so I'm sure you'd learn a lot with us.
Anyway, welcome to 8wayrun! :)
 
Aside from having an enormous moveset - a stance game that takes months to understand, an absurdly high risk to low reward ratio and that he is one of the weakest characters in the game - yet the hardest to learn. Of course he is Twiggy :P
 
Sig was my main for ever Soul Calibur but i made the switch to Voldo a few months ago. Although I do like trolling online with Rock.
 
Hello there!

Well, I'm not as pro as many people here, but I know some helpful tips:

-Keep your distance. This gives you time to think about what to do and what the enmy is doing.

-Be yourself. Don't just follow everything everyone says, develop your own style of fighting.

-Get a character you're comfortable with, more than one; and then develop a unique style using the moves you like and the strategy that makes you the least predictable as possible. But also try to know all the characters lightly, so that you know the weaknesses and strengths of your enemies. If you know for example, that your enemy uses a character with short range, you can use this against him.

-DON'T BE PREDICTABLE. This will lead you to defeat against more experienced players.

-Don't use grab attacks randomly. This is very noobish, predicatble and sign of desperation. Besides, anyone can break a grab, unless you have lag...

And well... Get hyped with SCV! Wellcome to 8WR!
 
norik434 said:
-Don't use grab attacks randomly. This is very noobish, predicatble and sign of desperation. Besides, anyone can break a grab, unless you have lag...
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Nothing wrong with throws. Buffer throw breaks in lag. That means mash your A, A+K, or A+B shoulder binds for an A break, or mash your B, or B+K binds for B break while guarding. Breaking throws can actually pretty be effortless/thoughtless, but also think about which throws your opponent is like to likely use. Are you near the edge? You should probably gamble on them using the RO throw instead.
 
Before you even worry about learning a character, I would do what Suirad suggested and learn the basics of the game. Defensively you can guard, crouch, jump, or step, or some combination of these. Offensively you have attacks that are high, mid, low, and special low, and that either do catch step or don't. That's the most basic.
The next level up is to understand "frames". Each attack takes a certain amount of time to come out, i.e. is slower or faster. After the attack, it takes time to recover from it. Likewise, when you block there is recovery, and when you get hit there is more recovery. (the word frames comes because there are 60 animation "frames" in a second, and all time related things in SC4 are measured by how many frames they take).
The general pattern in SC4 is that after you have been hit, it will take you longer to recover than your opponent. We say you are at minus frames or disadvantage. If you try to attack at this point, you will probably get beaten out as your attacks will start later than your opponents. Also the general pattern is that if you block an attack successfully, you will recover before your opponent. So the reverse is true. (a notable exception to this is what are called "chip lows" like 2K, these are slightly negative on hit).
If you are losing to most online people, odds are you don't understand these basics. So there is no point worry about characters and movelists. You don't even understand the game well enough to understand what kind of character you want, what kind of style you want.
What you should do instead is take a character with a decent AA, BB, and grab. I recommend Yoshi. Play against the computer for a while using just those moves. Your basic algorithm is this: if your attack hits, attack again. If your attack is blocked, then block. If his attack hits, then block. If his attack is blocked, then attack. When you attack, you can use AA if he is stepping, BB if he is crouching, and grab if he is just standing there guarding. Once this is natural to you, go do this online. Just using these moves you should on a decent connection be able to win 40 % or more of your matches.
I would go and do this, read some of the beginner threads that are sticky'ed in the forums, apply stuff, read again, etc. As these basics make more sense to you, I would throw in a few other basic moves. I.e. again for Yoshi, you can use FC3K instead of a grab to hit someone in standing guard. You can use 4KB or 33B B+K to do more damage than BB at the cost of being slower and less safe. You can use Yoshi's special grab for extra damage.
Once all this stuff makes sense to you and you can execute it well (you should be able to go at least 50-50 with an edgemaster computer, and about 50-50 or perhaps 40-60 with online players) you are competent at the basics. When that happens post here again (or you can message me) as to how to learn a particular character.

Note: upon re-reading your post I'm not sure whether you already understand the stuff above or not. In any case, make sure that you do before you read the second post.
 
For goodness sake nirf - trust me, Walls of text are just intimidating - just link appropriate threads with info and keep it short and sweet. I'm a vet player and I got information overload from your post.
 
And ignore him - pick whoever feels right to you. If you don't have a love for your character you'll get nowhere. All the soul arenas have players who are willing to help new guys out. But choose whoever you really love and stick with them - worry about your character if you become a tournament player. Certainly not right now.
 
Nirf said:
What you should do instead is take a character with a decent AA, BB, and grab. I recommend Yoshi. Play against the computer for a while using just those moves. Your basic algorithm is this: if your attack hits, attack again. If your attack is blocked, then block. If his attack hits, then block. If his attack is blocked, then attack. When you attack, you can use AA if he is stepping, BB if he is crouching, and grab if he is just standing there guarding. Once this is natural to you, go do this online. Just using these moves you should on a decent connection be able to win 40 % or more of your matches.
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I first came to this site at the recommendation of someone who beat me online playing roughly like this. I've also heard the training style or a reasonable facsimile suggested, even though I've never tried it myself. It sounds like a great starting point to get your game up quickly.

Synraii said:
For goodness sake nirf - trust me, Walls of text are just intimidating - just link appropriate threads with info and keep it short and sweet. I'm a vet player and I got information overload from your post.
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The truth is never simple. If you hold on to any hope of finding it, nuance and intelligent articulation are your friends.
 
Yes but this is a learning process - you can't just give him a tidal wave of info - it won't sink in as well. Let the guy learn at his own pace, quickly or slowly, what does it matter?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, but I feel things are being rushed slightly - it's like your trying to make him Signia in 5 minutes XD
 
Wow! Thank you everyone for the warm welcome. :) Especially Suirad, Toofbrush, norik, and Nirf for their detailed answers. I don't mind walls of text, so long as they're formatted. :3 And give Pocky Yoshi my regards.

So far I've taken a liking to Talim, Tira and Xianghua, but I'll look at Siegfried. Heavy characters aren't really my thing, but it would be nice to use someone who can actually deal damage. I think some of the basics might be a problem for me. I understand a lot of it in theory, but still have some trouble say with blocking both lows and highs, and consistently. And also, getting stuck in what I believe are tech traps? It seems I can't get off the floor fast enough to avoid getting hit by another attack. So practise practise practise, huh? Guess there's no way around it. XD

Uhm, I'm a chick, by the way. Surprise, surprise. :p
 
redpanda said:
Uhm, I'm a chick, by the way. Surprise, surprise. :p
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I for one was not surprised, you know how they say men and women have different handwriting? They tend to have different posting styles too!
Also, hello and welcome to 8wayrun, if there is anything you need, feel free to ask here or PM me (read: not a white-knight, I just mod here and take care of the newbies).

-Idle
 
You may want to hunt down some moves that have multiple properties attached to them. Nightmare's 11K does a lot all in one move (ducks highs, hits mid, and knocks the player down on a counter hit). Kilik's B+K 6B 41236B combo guard-impacts, beats strafe, and can be stopped and mixed up to grapple or some other attack, and can ring out the opponent. I like to call these "core" moves because they will make up the skeleton of your moveset.

It seems I can't get off the floor fast enough to avoid getting hit by another attack. So practise practise practise, huh? Guess there's no way around it.
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Yes. Example: If someone is rolling around on the ground then Nightmare's Grim stride KK will mess them up, but then there are some moves that you'll want to stay on the ground to avoid.

Anywho welcome
 
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