Preliminary tier talk criteria?

Artilust

Artilust

[10] Knight
I originaly started to post this on another forum as a vague question applying to all fighting games but I decided to tailor this specifically for the Soul Calibur community. With SCV literally a week and 1 day away for most people the tier talk is going to slowly start churning in, this is at least a first attempt to order our thoughts and sound credible when that discussion takes place. It worked in the Marvel vs Capcom 3 topic somewhere else, so lets do something like that here.

What do you see in this game that may change our criteria for tiers in SCV as opposed to previous installments? Do you think they will be more important than the traditional criteria?

To touch bases with anyone whos a little behind here's a quick rundown of previous "traits" that top tier characters had in SC [not excluding other fighting games]
1. Safety/Frames
The difference between Siegfried and Zasalamel. Essentially the amount of advantage that your character has on hit and block thats gains you more opportunities to advance. Traditionally the characters that have good tools that cant be punished after blocking are considered "good." Keep in mind that some character are unsafe even on hit.

Frames are how fast it takes a move to activate. The faster the startup, the faster the move, and the faster the move, the faster it will come out at the same time as your opponents move, thus you getting the first strike. Characters what are unsafe AND bad on frames, have no place in a top tier discussion.

2. Punishment
On block some characters can get a quick AA or BB at most, while other characters can block confirm a meaty punisher such as 236B or 3B into combo that takes the place of a simple AA, but does much more damage. Punishment is the idea of "punishing" you opponent with something every time they do something unsafe.

3. Range/Step/Tracking
Its one thing to have attacks with long reach, and then theres another thing to be Ralphael who's completely weak to one side. All the range in the world wont do you any good in Soul Calibur when your moves are very linear, therefore moves with embedded "tracking," that seem to follow moving opponents or have an arc thats wide enough to stop characters from stepping AROUND your attacks are good signs of a well equipped character. To an equal extent of importance, characters with strong 8-way run attacks, auto-gi, auto-evade and tech high/low also gain a boost.

4. Damage
A character can lack many things that make them well rounded, but if the damage output is severe enough they can land themselves high in the ranks. This is very self explanatory. Damage is also amplified based on the practicality of setting up the situation where large damage is in order. See: Astaroth wall/oki mixups.

5. Quick low
Characters who have fast lows that are i15 or less become annoying mosquitoes that can bite at your heels if you dont stay sharp. The quick lows such as Amy's 1A or Mitsu's 2K are almost unable to be reacted to and must be anticipated. As you could imagine, it becomes near impossible in the heat of the battle to time your defensive maneuvers where as something slow and sluggish like Talim's 1A or Siegfriends 1[A] give you nearly all the time in the world to react to. NOTE: there are uses for slow low attacks, but thats another topic...

For the sake of this argument, quick lows are a plus, and if the low happens to knock them off their feet, this sets them up for...

6. Okizeme/Mixup
Once you have knocked your opponent down on the ground and you cant combo them anymore for guaranteed damage, you have to find a way to make them afraid to do something in fear of standing up into another situation where they will be knocked right back down. This is okizeme or "oki." Oki is also hitting a grounded opponent, but the greater part of oki is the mindgame into a character standing back up. Having a game that makes it hard for your opponent to stand up gives you intense pressure and breaks down a crucial part of your opponents strategy.

Oki ties into mixup. Mixup is the art of mixing up. Its when you go mid when they duck too much. Its throwing them, or knocking them off their feet when they are now afraid to duck [because they dont want to be hit with a mid.] A mid in Soul Calibur is the same as an "overhead" in a 2d fighting game as you must block them standing. So what you want to do is either condition them to block low or block high, whichever one you can force them to do, then you counter that approach accordingly. Moves that are cancelable, moves that end in BT or moves that transition into a stance are excellent for mixup. Couple any of the traits above with mixup/oki and now you are talking about something nasty.

7. Guard damage (or is this really "new?")
With the block gauge in SCIV it was possible to crush someones defense that guarded too much and critical finish them; the mechanic is back, and still leads to whatever your heart desires. If SCV is anything like SCV characters that were great as busting someones guard meter up (like Voldo) will place high because now it costs meter to guard impact so you have to get them off you or risk having your guard destroyed temporarily stunning you and potentially giving them a chance to unleash their most damaging option on you for the win.
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With the new mechanics I can see a new dimension of tier placement based on:

8. Meter management

New to SCV, characters now have the ability to brave edge at the cost of 50% meter IIRC. What this is now going to do is make some characters better at using brave edge and some better at critical edge. Meter management in Soul Calibur 5 will consist of conserving meter based on the tools you may have..ie: Astaroth with meter is much more threatening with brave edge at his disposal as opposed to blowing it on critical edge.

Likewise, this can also be a hindrance to a character, say someone is only at their best when they are loaded with meter. I havent decided if a "good" meter management score means they need meter to be better or need meter to be competitive.
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Did I miss anything? This is all tentative, but using something similar to what I have notated above, it would much better suit the discussions, create character matchups/discuss anti-character strategies. I believe the blazblue community does something similar.

Essentially we would rank each character in each category on a scale of 1 thru something and then compare those overall to the rest of the cast to get a preliminary feel for how character interaction can be discussed.

For example::



XIBA (for example)
SAFETY/FRAMES - C
PUNISHMENT - B
RANGE/STEP/TRACKING - A
DAMAGE - A
LOWS - B
OKI/MIXUP - B
GUARD DAMAGE - C
METER MANAGEMENT - C
OVERALL - B-

Then you would go on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of said character, and others would pick out pieces they agree or disagree with based on the data, which leaves less room for endless pages of speculation and gun jumping.

yay? nay?
 
Maybe you should stick with

1) Damage
2) Reach
3) Power
4) Attack rate
5) Difficulty
 
Artilust said:
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Honestly, we need to see how the game shakes down, because some criteria might move up or down in importance. For example, is having solid lows still the same weighted boon it is in every other 3d fg in SC5? Does (as you say) Guard Damage really matter as much as is implied? Even the criteria need to be examined and weighted, I think.
 
as Idle said. Not enough of the really good players have managed to attain or even try this game yet. Even today people are still finding secret moves and gimmicks in SC4.

Also. Things like CE damage / usefulness. Brave edge mix ups. Post Just Guard. Guard Breaks are all relatively new mechanics to work with. I say guard breaks because not only did they have a much shorter vulnerability frame than they do now, but anytime you did get your guard broken you were critical finished. Now, Guard breaks can lead into twenty hit combos, critical edges, ring outs, etc. Which depending on character's options, i.e not everyone has sophies 33B, this could effect their place on a tier list.

When enough of the core tournament players get their hands on the game and start messing around with it seriously, then talk of a tier list may or may not be laughable.
 
Well nothing is really set in stone, nor were those points supposed to be literally in order.

I was just suggesting a real method to the forthcoming tier talk as flushing through dozens of pages of "IMO the top 5 are" ...with no real information supporting it will just make another general discussion topic when there should be actual exchanging of ideas.
 
Does quick low honestly merit it's own category? Can't it just be part of oki/mixup? I understand that they lend themselves to pressure game too, but I don't think they're defining enough for a whole category.
 
Fallacy said:
Personally I don't think difficulty should be considered in tier placement since I like to assume both characters are being played to maximum potential.
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Exactly. What a character is capable of is far more important than how you get there.

As for how characters should be rated, this should do:
1. Neutral game - This is comprised of how well a character operates when both characters are standing. Frame data and the safety thereof is implicit/infused in every subsection of this category, so I don't have it listed as a separate subsection, nor should I have to in order to state its importance.
-Pokes/Throws
-Setups/Mixups
-Block/Whiff Punishment
-Movement
-Zoning - Note: this is not the same as keep-away. This is about how a character controls the "zone", or space, of the game. A character's reach and tracking abilities are the core of this criteria.
-Ring-Out
2. Okizeme - How well a character is able to take advantage of a knockdown?
3. Damage output - This is mainly overall, but the focus is on combo damage. Essentially how well a character is rewarded for landing a hit.
4. Meter management - What does having meter for BE or CE add to the above categories in a character's gameplan?
 
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