The Calibur Primer

The Calibur Primer

Yomi, a term originating from VF and Sirlin Games, gets used a lot. But what does it really mean? It’s a fairly simple idea, meaning knowing the mind of the opponent. It means knowing what your opponent will do next so that you can capitalize on it.

So how do we achieve Yomi in Calibur?
Before the answer is revealed we must know How to Win:

1) Ringouts.

2) Opponent’s life reaches zero.

3) Timer runs out; you have more or equal life.

However there is something much more important before we consider these goals...



Know Thy Self
New players are susceptible to many forms of losing before Yomi can even occur.

After getting hit by a throw, a ringout, whatever, people have decided that these tactics are overwhelming and impossible to defeat. So instead of practicing and using their head to overcome these challenges, they instead create rules and bar people from games that use them. These players are controversially known as Scrubs.

A scrub is a mindset. Life is unfair, impossible, and the system is broke and the government is out to ruin them etc etc. You can find people harping about why their problems are someone else’s fault, and how their character nerfs were unnecessary, instead of working around these issues.

The scrub is the first thing that should be defined, in any Primer, for any written book, ever made. The reason is because the mindset is so prevalent in today’s age. Without getting too dramatic, I’ll just say to watch out for these people. The best way to fail is to scratch with the chickens instead of flying with the eagles. (Link to Sirlin)




Hawkeye
Winner of MLG Spring Fighter Arena:

Speaking the Language
Without bludgeoning you to death with technical jargon, have you ever been in a situation like this:

[You are fighting against a friend and realize that a move is really good]

You: Woah, did you see that one move that was pretty slick I think it might be really good.

Friend: What move?

You: You know that move Yoshi is turning around and then moves forward and..

Friend: ..nope

You: …

Friend: sounds like it’s a good move though!

Trying to communicate anything on a higher level is impossible doing it like this. The sooner you learn to speak the language of moves the faster you’ll learn the game.

Movelist and Input Guide




Frames
The most common reason for losing(setting aside the scrub mentality for now) is because new players don’t understand “frames”. Frames determine how safe or how punishable a move becomes after using it. There are 60 frames of animation every second.


If a move has more negative frames, then that meansit will take longer to guard after using the move. This means those moves get punished harder. If the move hits the opponent, then you’re fine. Most likely these moves will lead into a great combo starter or a ringout. But if you miss, or if the opponent guards it, then you’ll be in for a world of hurt.

If a move has more positive frames, then that means the move is considered safe. More positive frames means you can block sooner after you use the move. These give you a chance to skip the opponents turn, hopefully clocking them over the head while they think it’s their turn to attack. Typically moves with more positive frames are balanced by either being weak and fast, or they are slower but zone control better. There are other factors that go into deciding if a move should be safe or unsafe, and it's always best to take a look at the frame data guide in the wiki.



Ramon
Top Calibur player, and purple shirt guy:

The “impact frame” is what tells you how quickly a move will land (example: Algol’s 2A is i13). i= impact, or time before impact. It takes 13 frames of animation before an attack reaches the opponent. You can use this information to see which moves will beat out another purely based on speed.

These quick moves are used for interrupting the opponent and are quite effective for shutting down offense.

If you expect a 2A coming, then try a back step, The opponent will miss and you’ll have a chance to attack them while they are stuck in the move animation.

You can think of an attack in two parts: the windup/attack and the recovery time. If you hit someone during their windup/attack, the move registers as a counter hit (abbreviated as CH). Counter hit properties are usually more effective and desirable, but they aren't desirable all the time. A move that hits the opponent while they are stuck in the recovery of a move is called a whiff punish and registers as a normal hit (abbreviated NH). Whiffing means the opponent missed while trying to attack you.





Distance
The second most common reason for losing is because new players don’t understand distance. In almost all cases, a move is most effective at “tip range”. Tip range is the farthest away before the move stops connecting with the opponent. Players who don’t know their distance are seen using short ranged moves from far away, long ranged moves from close-quarters-combat, and generally spam attacks without any consideration. Both get them killed fast.

The stronger you grasp the distance of your moves, the sooner you’ll begin to learn how tozone your opponent. Zoning means controlling the space they move around in. It means limiting the amount of choices the opponent can make for a short amount of time. You can probably imagine how important controlling space is when there are ringouts and wallsplat combos. Against Nightmare it is very important to have good ring positioning.


If you learn to keep a good mindset, learn the frames of your moves, and the distance of your moves then you are already be better than 50% of the players online.

Being better at the technical aspects of the game is why you can beat your friends who never play, and why so many kids think they’re so damn good. There is actually a term for this called Big Fish Small Pond mentality, and it reeks of undeserved elitism. It is another variation of the term scrub, also known as the elite scrub, who claims that his opponent wasn’t any good, even though he just lost many times to them. The big-fish-small-pond scrub’s ego is so insanely bloated that any form of losing can’t be understood and must be compensated with reasons why. These reasons have nothing to do with the scrub’s skill or ability to adapt, of course.





Committing to Your Attack
Let’s consider the range of moves: We have slow launchers, quick pokes, and all the moves in between. Some important moves to look for have special properties built into them like crouching (evades highs), stepping (evades verticals), automatic backstep (evades a medium sized space and then retaliates), and some jump or lay down.

Siegfried’s B+K will duck under people poking with AA and grapples, turning the tables immediately for a 100+ dmg combo.

Algol’s FC A+B Bubble crouches high, stuns the opponent, and can lead into his double Critical Edge.

Leixia’s 44B automatically backsteps and retaliates, evading quick pokes and knocking the opponent down.


As Ramon mentioned in chat one day, Soul Calibur is a game of commitment. If you commit to a launcher, it had better connect. If it doesn’t, the balance of powers sways in your enemy’s favor, and they have easily earned a good portion of your life bar.

So now we kind of “get it”. The game suddenly becomes about risk management and traps. You want to trap your opponent into making poor choices and so now you might ask What are those poor choices and how do we force the opponent to make them?

Remember the positive and negative frames from earlier?

Frames give you a better understanding of what you can get away with. When you understand the properties of your moves, you’ll quickly realize that successfully landing one move will open a range of moves that you can get away with next.



The 2A Trap
A specific example is the 2A trap. 2A is meant to interrupt the opponent and to zone control them. It is hard to be evasive if you are getting poked with 2A.

Mentioned in QuickSteps Series, inturrupting an opponent causes them to lock up allowing the rest of your moveset to unlock. Many players don’t understand this. Instead they’ll use any move—any time. This results in hate mail, for you.



2A’s are special lows. They can be guarded high or low, or jumped. Most people don’t jump often, which is why when someone jumps a 2A the match suddenly gets exciting.

A successful 2A can open or close the spectrum of possible moves. The worst case scenario, it can promote a quick back and forth fight. You’ll see a lot of 2A, low kicks, and grapples. Grapples are meant to end the dispute and space the characters back out. Some characters have even better grapples that give them follow up attacks. (With the advent of Just-Guard, even more crazy stuff can happen.)

So let’s say you just used 2A and it hit your opponent. Your opponent can react in two ways:
1) Doing something or
2) Blocking

Hitting your opponent with the quickest move has unlocked a few more potential moves, but why? Remember, you are at positive frames now, and if you’re not sure always check the wiki frame guide. Now if your opponent tries to react while you are at positive, you can retaliate with another move. They are stuck, while you can keep going. There are ways to get out of these traps, but require risk to escape out of. This is why people who lock up are generally beaten fairly quickly. They are unwilling to take risk to get out of the hole.


If you’re learning a character, now would be a good time to find those moves in between launchers and pokes. Experiment with these and see if you can “unlock” your launchers and combo starters by using the 2A trap.




Remembering your Opponent's Habits

So now, Yomi becomes a little more obvious once we’ve defined a “trap”.

· If you feel that the opponent will lock up: throw them.

· If you think they’ll react: you must wonder How?

It is difficult, but the best players are keeping track of how you respond to their “traps”. In the highspeed nature of SC5, reading your opponent can take a few matches. But it is definitely possible.

Reacting correctly to the opponent is called making a good read.

Consider our 2A trap. If the opponent reacts by always 2Aing in return, use a move that tech jumps or that back-steps. The stronger your read, the less risky all your moves become. Combo starters and high damage moves can be punished severely. But that doesn’t matter if you know it will work.

Knowing when your opponent locks up is as important as knowing when your opponent lets up. Poking them to death can create interesting results, and I encourage you to experiment punishing this reflex mercilessly.




AlexJ
Notorious eyebrow guy, pro player:

Examples of Traps

Gauging skill at match start: Does the opponent spam out moves right away, do they guard, or do they backstep?

Generally if an opponent is turtling, I’ll instantly rush up and throw them. This is gauged within the first two seconds of the fight.


Running Rush down: This is when you literally rush to the opponent to see how they react. Do they crouch thinking you’ll slide kick them/throw them?? Mix up with your best mid, and your slide kick.

Quick Step Forward: This is the same as rush down but without the running part. Quickly step forward within grab distance. Does the opponent “twitch duck” expecting the throw? Or do they spam… or do they lock up? I’ll let you new guys know right now that crouching out of a throw is rarely the right answer to respond because it opens you up to launchers and other crazy stuff.

2A: How does the opponent respond to getting 2Aed? Will they 2A back? Will they spam moves? 2A ~hit~ throw is good. Once that is in their head, 2A~hit~quick strong mid is also good.

Long ranged quick move: Use a quick move to bait out the opponent’s response. Follow up with a strong attack as they start to make their move. Some moves go into a transition or stances that give you better advantage. Are they antsy and spammy from long range? Do they step a lot?

Character Specific Nonsense: This is when you toss out moves that have not-so-obvious weaknesses to see how the opponent reacts. If they don’t punish your -18 frame moves then why not throw them out all the time? Many times, the burden of the fight is due to character ignorance. Use this against your opponents and never assume they are good.

“Heaton, Suave Baritone(and ruthless authoritarian):

Mikosu, Tyrannical administrator, overthrown:

Pitfall #1: Online Ranked
There are only a few good methods when trying to get better at fighting games. It is important to find the one that works for you. The most important step in getting better is improving at specific matchups. Many times a certain matchup is seemingly impossible due to character ignorance. The opponent continues to use the same move, which you’d later learn is very punishable. Knowing that could have taken a large burden of stress off the fight and put things into your favor.

I think most pro players would agree that any type of experience is helpful to performance. You can get it in many different places. Consistent use of online ranked, however, is a poor source for training, except for the intrigue of being pinned against unknown fighters and the potential of finding new friends to spar against. Remember to keep a careful balance between Ranked matches and Player matches.
Most people who play in ranked are generally very bad, but this of course is subjective to your own skill level. Bad players, as we discussed, will throw out moves which seem random or unorthadox. This is a good reason to play against random fighters on a regular basis. You'll learn some dasterdly tactics this way, and you'll learn why high level play looks the way it is (due to the evolution of something called "meta" which we'll talk about in the next episode of Primer). Good fighters are few and far between so it's important you find these guys and girls and invite them to sparring matches after the ranked match is over. Learning real matchup experience in first to three rounds is too difficult and goes by too quickly.

The best way to get matchup experience is to make friends with people who give you good matches and then challenge them to a first to three Player Match(or more). Write their name down along with their character and when it’s time to work on a specific match up you can send them a message and get the fight underway. You can write down anything from their location to their playing habits, like "he spams B grabs more than A" or "has a tendency to spam pokes or tries to inturrupt often"

People who are better than you probably don’t want to waste their time. But if you are polite, ask for advice, listen, and have a good attitude then you may earn a few rounds against the masters. Never feel that you aren't good enough for their fight. But know your limits. If you aren't learning anything, it's best to submit until you can return with new-found knowledge from playing others. Many veteran players have trouble putting into words high level strategy, so don’t be surprised if they don’t have much to say on the matter.

Listen very closely to anything they have to say, and muse on it over night.


Pitfall #2: Becoming a Victim

Your character was nerfed or your worst matchup was buffed, what do you do?
A) Complain, play victim, quit the game
B) Learn the game, study the matchup, over come adversity


OmegaDR, world champion:[QUOTE]Mmm, play the game , enjoy it, pick the char that you like, if you cant win dont blame the character, and please if you cant win dont come here to 8wayrun to cry about it and argue with the ones that know the game, instead ask what you can do and keep learning, chequerao.[/QUOTE]


Pitfall #3: Casual players suck
Remember this is a community of all types of people. Remember that at one point you too were a casual player. My first game was Soul Calibur 2 and I loved the unlockable items and gears. The play modes were fun and made fighting against the CPU not so terrible. Those silly, gimmicky things are what get people hooked. Be nice to everyone, because you never know who just might be a pro player years from today.

Pitfall #4: Becoming an Old Man
There is an excuse at every age. Don't fall into the old man trap. If you think you are old, and you say you are old, then you are old.


Enkindu, the Voldo god:

BrewtusBibulus, Commentator of Legends:

Nice. Maybe this should be in the new player area too?

Well written and insightful. Sticky worthy?

A good read, this needs to be stickied.

Very good read. A lot of players could learn from these, including myself. :)

Had to lol at the shit talk section at the end. Shin-Goh is a actually a fairly solid alpha player from germany. No idea how ramon ended up inviting him though lol.

Soul Calibur Bible, eat your heart out.

Only statement that I didn't agree with (as it contradicted itself):

When I saw your YouTube video in regards to this it actually helped me improve in some aspect, I even keep a chart of opponents I play whom I consider some of the best for each character. I also keep a list of what match-ups I have trouble with and need to work on.

^Try getting some matches in with PyroZamfir if he's playing SCV. He's been playing it less frequently lately but he is an excellent Sieg player. Better than me even. He has all around match up knowledge while I need to touch of on some of my MUs. He mains Sieg but it seems he doesn't like mirrors so he uses Hilde against Sieg. Good Hilde player too, after playing him all Hilde players I've seen after seem like easy sauce.

This was very helpful~ Im glad I read it :o

Wow, great read! Project Soul need to see this and should've printed it out with REAL PAPER in the SCV Bible book. xD

I still come back to this thread every now and then to boost up my motivation, thank you!

You're totally right so I clarified this and added a few notes as well as my own findings since I wrote this:

I think most pro players would agree that any type of experience is helpful to performance. You can get it in many different places. Consistent use of online ranked, however, is a poor source for training, except for the intrigue of being pinned against unknown fighters and the potential of finding new friends to spar against. Remember to keep a careful balance between Ranked matches and Player matches.
Most people who play in ranked are generally very bad, but this of course is subjective to your own skill level. Bad players, as we discussed, will throw out moves which seem random or unorthadox. This is a good reason to play against random fighters on a regular basis. You'll learn some dastardly tactics this way, and you'll learn why high level play looks the way it is (due to the evolution of something called "meta" which we'll talk about in the next episode of Primer). Good fighters are few and far between so it's important you find these guys and girls and invite them to sparring matches after the ranked match is over. Learning real matchup experience in first to three rounds is too difficult and goes by too quickly.

The best way to get matchup experience is to make friends with people who give you good matches and then challenge them to a first to three Player Match(or more). Write their name down along with their character and when it’s time to work on a specific match up you can send them a message and get the fight underway. You can write down anything from their location to their playing habits, like "he spams B grabs more than A" or "has a tendency to spam pokes or tries to inturrupt often"

People who are better than you probably don’t want to waste their time. But if you are polite, ask for advice, listen, and have a good attitude then you may earn a few rounds against the masters. Never feel that you aren't good enough for their fight. But know your limits. If you aren't learning anything, it's best to submit until you can return with new-found knowledge from playing others. Many veteran players have trouble putting into words high level strategy, so don’t be surprised if they don’t have much to say on the matter.

This thread is a great way to make players better at the game. I was reading an interview about Decopon winning EVO 12. One question was on why he chose Tira. Decopon said that Tira was weak and playing a weaker character helped hone his skills. I love how referenced

This reminded me of some Leixia "nerfs" like WS B[BE] having less guard damage and removing the option to do a second CE if you have 200% meter. This made Leixia better by using meter intelligently. She's fine and doesn't need nerfs & buffs. People just can't say she's "unviable" because of damage output. The people who are saying that are looking at Leixia from one angle. Leixia is very safe, has many good tools, and her greatest strength is SCV game mechanics.

I don't think it's even possible to play him on sc5 anymore :/ I tried playing him 3 times already on XBL he has yet to respond to me....I think he just doesn't play this game anymore and moved on.

Some of the matchups are very difficult. But this thread isn't about that specific topic.

Lame... I think it's retarded how I'm the next best Sieg player on XBL despite the huge skill gap between me and Pyro. I'll be as good as him someday, I'm slowly getting there.

I'm slowing hating JG more and more. It ruins my frametraps. I love frametraps but JG makes it so they have an easy way out of them to punish and guard even if I delay what I'm doing. People say do throws but they can still break throws. Others will stay do mix ups. Only problem with that is Siegfried doesn't have mix ups from neutral frames. His lows aren't good enough for that. I'll get over it though.