Our recent discussion of tiers sparked some interesting side discussion about why people select their main characters. Think back, for a moment to how you came to play your main character(s). What motivated your decision? Was it strategic, or did it just happen?
As with all new iterations of the game, SC5 will probably herald another large-scale shift in mains—I’ve mained a different character in every version of Calibur, myself—and we’ll also have an influx of players new to competitive Soul Calibur who are also looking for characters.
That being the case, I thought I’d devote this week to the ins and outs of character selection.
Radical Instrumentalism—It’s Not Just For Yngwie Malmsteen Anymore
The general principle I recommend in choosing a character is one of radical instrumentalism—that of seeing your particular character as ultimately a tool for you to use in order to achieve victory. It’s self-evident, right? Perhaps, but not as much as one might think. Indeed, the operative word in my definition above isn’t “tool,” but “you.” If selecting a character was simply a matter of choosing whichever gives the general player the best shot at winning, the process would be no more complex than consulting a tier list, but while such lists are excellent points of departure for the search, they’re not gospel. Your primary concern when approaching character selection should always be finding the character that gives you, as an individual player, the best shot at victory.
Before we can do that, however, we need to engage in a little self-analysis. Think about your own play across a variety of games. Go back and watch videos if you have that luxury. The goal here is to create an inventory of your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Do you prefer fast characters, slower characters, or a mixture of the two? Would you rather be proactive about pushing mix-ups, or would you rather rely on defense and punishment? Are you good at highly technical or demanding execution? Do you fight better up close or from a distance? Ask yourself these and similar questions, taking care to answer them for yourself as honestly as possible. From this you can get a sense of what type of player you are, which in turn will give you some clues as to which characters might best suit you.
Selection Models
1. Complementary: The complementary model involves choosing the character that most dramatically rewards the things at which you are already skilled, be they 50/50 mix-ups, making difficult punishes, zoning, etc. You simply identify those things at which you are most skilled and then find the character that gives you the best payoff.
2. Supplementary: The inverse of the complementary model, the supplementary approach involves finding a character with strengths that offset your own weaknesses. If you aren’t the best at complicated punishes, for example, a character with easy, brain-dead punishers might raise the overall level of your game.
3. Tier-Only: Some players are well-rounded enough to select a character based exclusively on that character’s strength relative to the rest of the cast. In that case, it truly is just a matter of finding the most powerful member of the cast and hitting the lab.
4. Ease-of-Use: For players with a generally high fighting game IQ who don’t necessarily have game-specific skills. If you’re just learning the game, or if you’re a smart player who doesn’t want to be encumbered by lots of technical marginalia, this is something to consider.
5. The Novelty Act: Knowing that most players tend to clump around self-evidently powerful or aesthetically interesting characters, this model involves purposefully seeking out a less-used character in order to gain additional advantages over opponents who may likely be ignorant of what yours can do at a high level.
There’s obviously some overlap within these models, so consider them more as general guidelines for consideration rather than exclusive categories.
A note on aesthetics: To this point, I haven’t made much of what a character looks like, how “cool” a character is, and so on, but don’t think that this consideration has no place in character selection. In fact, I’m firmly convinced that the more we like our characters, the more we identify with them on some level, the more engaged we become and thus the better we play. Playing a character you find to be boring or stupid looking will put you on the fast track to under-performance. You’re often better off choosing the mid-tier character you like over the top-tier character you can’t stand.
Example Time
My own process follows the outline above fairly well. First, I rule out all female characters, Kilik, Maxi, and Yun because I refuse to play chicks.
I then start looking at bigger, slower characters, preferably as evil as possible. By initially filtering based on my aesthetic concerns, I’m left with a pool of characters that at least appear interesting to me. I then turn to my self-assessment. I’m good at being patient, fighting from a distance, landing slow, awkward moves on people, and parsing complex mix-up scenarios. I’m not very good at utilizing very fast moves. Going with the complementary model, I try to find characters that have range, reward patience, hit hard, and generally aren’t AA/BB/2A dependent, which narrows the field significantly.
Of the remaining characters, I just play around with them and find the one that feels the most natural. The process is still governed by “feel” and other difficult variables to quantify, but starting from a more logical, objective strategy I vastly decrease the odds that I end up wasting time on characters I ultimately won’t like or can’t play to their potential.
Homework
Tell me how you came to choose your own character(s). Will you be switching for SC5? For those of you who’ve already said you’ll be maining Viola, ZWEI, or another new character, what guided that decision?
*Editors Note: We will add the slider image as soon as we get it. There was a 50/50 mixup and we guessed wrong. Will tech that shit into the slider later.
As with all new iterations of the game, SC5 will probably herald another large-scale shift in mains—I’ve mained a different character in every version of Calibur, myself—and we’ll also have an influx of players new to competitive Soul Calibur who are also looking for characters.
That being the case, I thought I’d devote this week to the ins and outs of character selection.
Radical Instrumentalism—It’s Not Just For Yngwie Malmsteen Anymore
Who?
The general principle I recommend in choosing a character is one of radical instrumentalism—that of seeing your particular character as ultimately a tool for you to use in order to achieve victory. It’s self-evident, right? Perhaps, but not as much as one might think. Indeed, the operative word in my definition above isn’t “tool,” but “you.” If selecting a character was simply a matter of choosing whichever gives the general player the best shot at winning, the process would be no more complex than consulting a tier list, but while such lists are excellent points of departure for the search, they’re not gospel. Your primary concern when approaching character selection should always be finding the character that gives you, as an individual player, the best shot at victory.
If only manliness was the best shot at victory in Soul Calibur, this guy would win everything forever.
Before we can do that, however, we need to engage in a little self-analysis. Think about your own play across a variety of games. Go back and watch videos if you have that luxury. The goal here is to create an inventory of your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Do you prefer fast characters, slower characters, or a mixture of the two? Would you rather be proactive about pushing mix-ups, or would you rather rely on defense and punishment? Are you good at highly technical or demanding execution? Do you fight better up close or from a distance? Ask yourself these and similar questions, taking care to answer them for yourself as honestly as possible. From this you can get a sense of what type of player you are, which in turn will give you some clues as to which characters might best suit you.
Interestingly, this character appeals to people who want to win, and people who have other... tastes. Rarely do they meet.
Selection Models
1. Complementary: The complementary model involves choosing the character that most dramatically rewards the things at which you are already skilled, be they 50/50 mix-ups, making difficult punishes, zoning, etc. You simply identify those things at which you are most skilled and then find the character that gives you the best payoff.
2. Supplementary: The inverse of the complementary model, the supplementary approach involves finding a character with strengths that offset your own weaknesses. If you aren’t the best at complicated punishes, for example, a character with easy, brain-dead punishers might raise the overall level of your game.
3. Tier-Only: Some players are well-rounded enough to select a character based exclusively on that character’s strength relative to the rest of the cast. In that case, it truly is just a matter of finding the most powerful member of the cast and hitting the lab.
4. Ease-of-Use: For players with a generally high fighting game IQ who don’t necessarily have game-specific skills. If you’re just learning the game, or if you’re a smart player who doesn’t want to be encumbered by lots of technical marginalia, this is something to consider.
5. The Novelty Act: Knowing that most players tend to clump around self-evidently powerful or aesthetically interesting characters, this model involves purposefully seeking out a less-used character in order to gain additional advantages over opponents who may likely be ignorant of what yours can do at a high level.
There’s obviously some overlap within these models, so consider them more as general guidelines for consideration rather than exclusive categories.
A note on aesthetics: To this point, I haven’t made much of what a character looks like, how “cool” a character is, and so on, but don’t think that this consideration has no place in character selection. In fact, I’m firmly convinced that the more we like our characters, the more we identify with them on some level, the more engaged we become and thus the better we play. Playing a character you find to be boring or stupid looking will put you on the fast track to under-performance. You’re often better off choosing the mid-tier character you like over the top-tier character you can’t stand.
Example Time
My own process follows the outline above fairly well. First, I rule out all female characters, Kilik, Maxi, and Yun because I refuse to play chicks.
Apparently, I'm going to need one of these around here.
I then start looking at bigger, slower characters, preferably as evil as possible. By initially filtering based on my aesthetic concerns, I’m left with a pool of characters that at least appear interesting to me. I then turn to my self-assessment. I’m good at being patient, fighting from a distance, landing slow, awkward moves on people, and parsing complex mix-up scenarios. I’m not very good at utilizing very fast moves. Going with the complementary model, I try to find characters that have range, reward patience, hit hard, and generally aren’t AA/BB/2A dependent, which narrows the field significantly.
Of the remaining characters, I just play around with them and find the one that feels the most natural. The process is still governed by “feel” and other difficult variables to quantify, but starting from a more logical, objective strategy I vastly decrease the odds that I end up wasting time on characters I ultimately won’t like or can’t play to their potential.
Homework
Tell me how you came to choose your own character(s). Will you be switching for SC5? For those of you who’ve already said you’ll be maining Viola, ZWEI, or another new character, what guided that decision?
*Editors Note: We will add the slider image as soon as we get it. There was a 50/50 mixup and we guessed wrong. Will tech that shit into the slider later.
