Let’s talk about tier lists and character loyalists
How often do people ask you — why are you playing that low-tier character? Why do they keep cultivating the concept of good and bad characters in fighting games and why we should not look at the pro players when we want to start playing a new character? Let’s talk about characters and tiers.
You should play only characters you like.
The golden rule of fighting games is play characters you like. Why? Because it is a hard genre of competitive games, and you are going to be learning basic mechanics, combos, punishments and proper spacing for many years. If you like your character, it will be easier to be consistent and polish your abilities. In fighting games there’s often a roster of more than 30 characters who have different game plans and — what is important — you will always find a character better than your main in some aspects of the game.
Tiers are not important for you.
Everyone seems to love talking about the tiers. This is perfectly understandable — after all, the pros are used to respect it, and their image is followed by amateurs, who try to explain to themselves that they lose because someone uses an excessively strong character. The problem is that tier lists are for the top one percent of all competitive players who understand the game and its mechanics so well that the only way for them to get to the top of the high stakes tournaments is to change their character to one that works better in those environments.
Among lower-level players, it is common to see a fluent switching of characters by players, usually from one failure in a tournament to another. On the other hand, loyalists of characters who are considered weak win tournaments because they can capitalize on their strengths, gracefully passing up their weaknesses.
If you enjoy playing your character, whether it is considered strong or not, play it. Even the toughest, weakest character can have their five minutes, as was the case in 2018’s Tekken World Tour, or Street Fighter V — Evo 2018 and the case of the player named Prototype. Sure, not being able to counter many of your opponent’s options can be depressing, but on the other hand, it will teach you how to be creative, and force you to make decisions that, while being more demanding, are surprising to your opponent. Use seemingly weaker options that no one with a healthy mind wouldn’t ever reach for in stressful situations.
If you are in a character crisis and do not know exactly what you are doing wrong, look for a community of players of around your favourite character or do what one of my favourite Polish FGC players recommended me — try to copy the style of a professional player who uses that character. Once you manage to understand what he uses in a particular situation and why, you will start to build your own style. Trimur — my warmest regards, you have changed my perspective on the game whether it was Lei in Tekken, Kim Wu in Killer Instinct or Poison in Street Fighter V.
It is good to learn how to use “fundamental” character — even, if you like to do gimmicks.
It is not wrong to play characters that are unconventional. If someone is undermining your skills simply because they are losing to you, then that person is obviously weaker and tries to move the game to an area where they are better at. Of course, it is good to have one character in your inventory that relies on basic gameplay mechanics to give you a better understanding of them, but it is not necessary.
In my opinion, a lot of players who prefer gimmicky characters rely too heavily on character-specific abilities like stances and 50/50 mix-ups, without knowing how to play with an opponent who can counter that.
If a character or mechanic is giving you trouble, try that character, and play with said mechanic and see how other players deal with it. For me, this is the easiest and most enjoyable way to learn how to counter annoying characters, but it requires extra time to learn a character you will not be playing later. Alternatively you can make use of dozens of available analyses, tutorials and online tournaments where you can see what other players do to control problematic characters and I guess I don’t have to explain why it’s better to spend 30 minutes learning how to counter the tools that annoy you instead of spending 3 weeks getting angry and taunting players of “OP” characters, just because you don’t know how to deal with them.
Do not be that jerk cutting people’s wings.
I have not been able to finish this material for a long time, yet yesterday something pushed me to do so. It was my girlfriend taking over my computer for 4 hours, so I could not play, and I had to do something. In fact, it was a salty opponent who yelled at me for being the worst, simply because I was playing a character that before the massive nerfs was described as the most powerful Tekken character, now being average and annoying at best.
However, this player just did not know how to play Tekken, using very punishable and well-known options, and I took advantage of that almost without attacking him — he was killing himself. I was playing, but it was because of his lack of knowledge and game mechanics. However, it didn’t help
You do not want to be like him, believe me. This man takes his precious time to rail against me instead of analysing his matches with me, which, since I like to annoy my opponents, only gives me the wild satisfaction of a well-done job.
What would I do if I were in his shoes? I would watch the recorded play, save it, then after making sure my punishment was acceptable in that situation, I would ask the veteran players of the character what I am doing wrong, since I cannot determine it myself. It has helped me many times to overcome the subsequent difficulties I encountered.
Play who you want for all the time you want and against whom you want. After all, it’s all about having fun. While self-development is the most important in competitive games, don’t undermine winning, because if you’re succeeding, the problem is probably on the loser’s side.
