Choosing a character to stick with...

Alrighty, I keep having a major problem. I can't seem to pick one character and stay working on just them. During VF1 and VF2 I was solely casual, but in VF1 I played Wolf and in VF2 I played Lion almost exclusively. Then VF3 hits and after trying everyone I settled on Taka, but with the birth of VF4 my big bad sumo went bye-bye. (stupid high polygon count) Now that VF4 is out I cannot choose a character I want to stick with. I have gotten now where I want to play more competitively, but I am having a lot of trouble finding someone to focus my attention and work on. Jeffrey has caught the most of my attention, but I have so mych trouble dealing with fast characters such as Jacky, Pai, and Lau. It's painful to play sometimes.

Now we have VF4evo hitting PS2 in under 2 weeks and I must admit that Brad and Goh look nice. I haven't had a chance to play evo yet, since we have no close machines I am aware of. Goh looks fun, but my opinion of Brad has changed tremendously and he seems awesome now. I love Muy Thai and he seems to flow well. So now I have a small puzzle to figure out.

VF4E seems to have redone every character to some extent. The footage of both exhibition and tourney play seems to be quite different from VF4 and a bit more fleshed out. Every character seems to be better now and the new moves and styles seem very nice.

How did you come about choosing your main character you play now?
Should I just wait for VF4evo and concentrate my efforts there?

I really want to gain in experience and ability so I can start competing over the summer in VF4 or VF4E comps on the East Coast with many of you.

My basic overview of VF4 characters:
Akira - I dislike Akira so much my mind won't let me play him well. Always felt he was overpowered.
Lei Fei - A lot of fun, but his speed gets me stuffed quite a bit.
Pai - Very fun, but lack of concrete damage annoys me.
Lau - Awesome, but I feel kinda cheese when I play him. Not a lot of variety and he hits too hard. Also, very linear.
Vanessa - Good, but lacks speed as well. Seems she doesn't do quite enough damage as well.
Shun - A blast to play, but seems to do less damage than Pai on average. Very annoying.
Lion - Very cool, but I rely on 2-3 attacks to set up my whole game. Very weak on my part.
Jeffrey - Awesome. Simple and fun, but that is also his weakness. Lack of speed and move variety gets me stuffed. Period.
Jacky - See Akira
Aoi - She seems to cater to Turtle players and thats not my style. Her offensive game seems very weak.
Sarah - Fun, but I play her like a retarded Jacky. So it's just me sucking that makes her fair poorly. I haven't worked out using her Flamingo yet, if it has a good usage.
Wolf - Awesome, but I rely on his throws too much. He is also a bit slow and that hurts me against speed characters.
Kage - I have always liked Kage a lot, but if you ever wanna see the epitome of scrub then let me choose him. I suck worse with him than I do with Akira and I like Kage. He also has the damage trouble. Having to hit as much as Pai for same damage, but not a solid in the combo department.

I like intermediate gameplay, good damage, competitive speed, and low flash. None of the current characters seem to offer that. unless I am missing something

 

Dunno if you'll be happy choosing a character via poll. I chose mine by picking one whose gameplay I liked, and staying with her for several years. I eventually moved from pai to lau, but only because it's flamingly obvious lau offers a lot of what pai does, only he's stronger. (I agree he's boring).


Sarah is a fine, solid choice for getting good results at the intermediate level. There aren't enough sarah players in the world and I suspect she's underrated (I mention that because you seem to have "MUST NOT PLAY TOP TIER CHARACTER" complex, which I feel is sort of a handicap in your thinking. If akira is too good to play as, it's easy to come to the conclusion that he's too good to play against when someone thrashes you with him)

Anyway, Sarah's great because:

[*] Her combos are consistent to the point of being canned, she can do 80-100 points per float.

[*] She has all the basic tools like an elbow (and the excellent canned elbow-chop combo), a reliable float starter, a sweep, an 11 frame jab, good long range pokes like f+K+G, and the uf+K, which defies description... a weird consistent small float starter that wipes out low punches and rising attacks.

[*] The stance is very strong. In this game, getting advantage when a move is blocked is rare... but all the moves that enter sarah's stance give her +2 or +4 frames of advantage when guarded, setting up pretty strong guessing games for sarah.

[*] Good array of throws, including one that is escaped with db (good throws that must be escaped with db are a rarity).

 

I'm trying to not have that complex, but I do recognize that I have it to some extent. My main problem with Akira other than his monstrous damage is that his moves do not flow to me. Kinda an odd way to put it, but when I play with him I feel like I am having to work really hard to get what appears to be a simple move out. Jacky on the otherhand is the opposite of Akira play-wise. He can deal out massive damage without you as a player putting much effort in his moves. I recognize that many top players in the world rely on Akira, Jacky, and Lau. Lau is my choice out of those, but I'm not sure yet. I'm currently toying with Kage, since a lot of the latest vids show some fun work with him.

I'm always open to suggestions since I am just kinda stuck right now. Playing 1 character for a week and then switching to another over and over isn't helping my game much. Thanks CreeD.

 

Well, I have had the same problem in my relatively short playin time in VF4. I started out playin lion, and I still do play him from time to time, then I moved on to Kage, well because he is a bada$$, but, to me I always wanted to play as Akira. I have been using him for quite some time now, and even though I think I still suck with him, I stick with him because I have always wanted to use him. I think it is the desire outside of their moves that helped me choose. Seems to me you really like Kage, whether or not he lives up to all those descriptions that you want, you like using him or at least his look.

Who cares if you think someones moves are too powerful, there is always going to be someone better who can kick your butt with a less powerful character, thats what makes this game rock, so choose damnit and get practicing

 

The primary criteria for the characters I play is the mind game. I want to setup after setup after setup. I love that aspect of the game.

I used to play Wolf almost exlusively. I swtiched to Pai because I felt she was terribly underrated. At first it was to prove a point that she can compete a high level - I think I achieved that. Now in EVO, she's even better, imo, with more setups than before. I can't think of a character that's more fun to play than Pai. But that's my bias.

Now, I've always toyed with Akira and Kage. I played them both very competitively in VF2 and VF3 so I still feel quite comfortable playing them. So, I'll bounce around with different characters in an evening of Evo - from Akira to Kage to Jeffry (who's also a lot of fun) to Pai to Aoi.

Whoever you do choose - stick to them for a while to get competitive and then start to expand.

cheers,

 

Shun
Reason: piss off creed

 

Lion & Shun: Used them since VF2, and liked their style
Lei Fei: LIke his style, plain and simple, even though my Lei Fei isn't so hot
Aoi: Reversals are fun
Vanessa: wanted to learn a new character
Pai: As stated before, she's quite underrated. While one punch of hers isn't so strong, she can potentially do a lot of damage, and is by far the most agile.

I stuck w/ Shun thru Ver C., as I like being the underdog. I took special pride in pouncing on Jacky players w/ him. I feel at a very unfair advantage against Sarah & Akira w/ him ( still do) as they can sober him up SOOOO easy.

the only other character I'd likely pick up is Kage. There are quite a few Kage's, but he looks quite kewl. For the other guys - (especially Jacky, Lau, Akira, and to a lesser extent Sarah) I think there just isn't enough room in the world for someone else using them.

 

I cannot tell you which char's you should stick w/, but I can tell you how I choosed mine. I started by picking up a set of char's Kage, Akira, and Vane. As for Akira, I can't do too much w/ him. The other char's I can do ok. So in retrospective, I'd say you should pick one from each of the three tier listed by sega, so you'll have a set to use. My own error was to pick Akira and Vane which both are from difficult tier. And, Kage was from medium tier. I should have pick up one from easy tier. I think you should factor in how fast can your fingers be too. If it's fast, put akira & lau to use, but you already decided not use akira and lau is too boring for you.

 

My (completely biased) 2 cents....


Jeffry:
If you've ever seen Kyasao's Jeffry, you'd be surprised at how effective he can be. Faster characters can be a pain to deal with, but it all depends on your spacing techniques. Jeffry has the uncanny ability to keep opponents at mid-range, yet still dish out painful damage. Jeffry's just loads of fun to use, plain and simple /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif. A wise man once said: "It's how you use the character, not tiers".

Kage:
I'd put his learning curve at an intermediate level, but the more you use him, the deeper he gets. IMO, he's the most versatile character in the game because he has good okizime, excellent throws, agility, speed, excellent ring-out power, and can fight from any distance (plus he's a ninja, and everyone knows that ninja = cool). He's my #2 character because of this. Like all characters, it takes some time to learn all of his mind-games....I'm still learning.

Pai:
Very agile, extremely quick, but not as powerful as Lau. Good defense (especially those inashis) helps her set up some very interesting mind games. Did I mention she was quick?

Shun:
Definitely an expert level character that takes a long time to master. His damage is weak, but that's nothing a few drinks can't cure.

Aoi:
I disagree with you on this one. She may seem to appeal to turtle players at first, but she can be played rather aggressively if you wish. Her numerous G-cancel moves are enough to make the opponent freeze long enough for a throw, or an ill-advised move. The main reason I use her is outstanding defense. If Jacky/Lau tries to rush you down, just inashi that garbage. It's fun. /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Sarah:
More versatile than Jacky, but not as powerful. Flamingo is the key. I don't use her enough to consider myself anything but average.

Vanessa:
Expert character, but this is mostly due to her gigantic movelist (IMO). Very powerful defensive option-select due to her high/mid/low sabakis, auto-parry and low punch inashi (in addition to her reversals). Speed isn't an issue either, because she has an alternate stance for that. Extremely versatile character. Highly underrated.

Wolf:
See Jeffry.

Lei-Fei:
My #3 character. IMO, he's the only character in the game who is both expert and beginner level. Keeping the opponent at mid-range is the most important thing. Once this is accomplished, speed is no longer an issue. IMO, you must use the stances. His new Bokutai stance (in Evo) makes his close range game alot better, so he's definitely more versatile than before. I also think that a good Lei should constantly be in motion. He's a dancin' machine!!!!

Lion:
Thought he was just average until I saw footage of Chibita for the first time. Good mid/low mixups makes him a hard character to read, plus his okizime is outstanding. I've grown to accept him as one of my characters, but I refuse to use him seriously.

Goh:
I'm still learning the details of Goh's strategy, but I like what I see so far. His versatile throw arsenal was enough to peak my interest from the very beginning. As soon as my import copy of Evo arrives in the mail, I'll have many sleepless nights trying out new stuff.

Brad:
This guy's like a little bit of Jacky and alot of Vanessa's old Muay Thai stance. I'll learn to use him eventually, but right now I'm all about Goh.

Lau:
Less boring than he used to be, but still boring as hell. Top tier as always. PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPK....pounce. /versus/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Jacky:
I refuse to jump on the "Jacky-bashing" bandwagon. IMO, he's a character that gives beginners a reasonable shot at winning. What's so wrong with that? The only problem I have with him is his lack of growth potential. Not a whole lot changes once you get good.


Finally....

My main character:

I think the term "Overpowered" has been used so many times, I just ignore it and move on whenever I see it. I've only been a member of this board for a short time and I'm amazed at the number of people who have bitched and whined about "the pig" being too powerful (this isn't directed at you personally, I'm just speaking generally).

People usually jump to conclusions because they:

A) Don't understand the character.

B) Don't have what it takes to use the char, and simply give up.

or C) Insist on using "underdog" charcters (i.e., avoiding so-called "top tier" chars). This has to do with personal preference, so I can't help you there.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: If there's no reward for dedication, what's the point? I'm just wasting my time if I'm working this hard, with nothing to show for it.

Practice, practice, practice. That's what it's all about.

 

Well put, DRE.

Akira overpowered? When he's rolling, sure...if the fingers are primed and the eyes & brain & 6th sense are working well, Akira is a goddamned beast.

Akira easy to get rolling? When you see good players...REALLY good players try and end up breaking out something like for a big, floaty jump punch, I don't see how you can say so.

Akira satisfying to play/"master"? No matter how good your Akira gets, there's still room for improvement. Watching him climb the ladder while you callous your fingers is, IMO, the shit.

On Lau: Big Boy isn't around at this particular moment, which is good because I don't think there'd be any end to the expletives or talk of MARCH or DALLAS or KOEN-KEN or YAHHHHHHHH. Suffice it to say, boring PLAYERS are easier to spot than boring CHARACTERS.

Oh, and to basically paraphrase what DRE said in another thread...I've never considered Shun in the 5th round to be the underdog.

 

Shun in the 5th round is a bully ... /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[ QUOTE ]
...if the fingers are primed and the eyes & brain & 6th sense are working well, Akira is a goddamned beast.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a strong believer that this could be applied for any character, really.

 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm a strong believer that this could be applied for any character, really.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely. I was having another gayass Akira fanboy moment. Happening to me abunch lately.

Actually I was sort of pointing to something I had written then deleted, which was something like this: I find Akira especially difficult to use "cold". I'll hop on the joystick and win out the gate with Jeff or Jacky or Lau and then get sniffed out after a decent run. With Akira I'll eat a few losses (often more than a few losses) before going on that monster run where things just don't seem fair. Might be confidence. Might be alpha waves. Might be a defect in my play. I don't know. I just find Akira to be tough to knock off the hill after a difficult climb up.

 

given your criteria for selecting characters (speed, power, not too tough to pick up), it sounds to me like you want <gasp> the perfect character. let me remind you that this _does not exist!!!_

every character in vf4 has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. how cosmically unfair would it be to have a character that has jeff's potential for damage but with the speed of pai, or even jacky? no one would last a round. or how about a character as potentially damaging as akira with commands as easy to input as lau's? jesus, man, who wouldn't want to play akira if all it took to spod was ++ > + > ? or imagine having a beginner-level gameplay version of akira's evading bodycheck in your arsenal! is it christmas again already, or was eating the entire ten-strip a bad idea after all?

listen dude, what you need to do is pick a character that you feel comfortable with (sounds like jeff is it right now) and in addition to learning his movelist, learn to deal with his weaknesses. if you think a character's a bit slow, work on spacing a bit more as dre suggested. relying on throws too much? go to free training, set the practice dummy to level five, and don't throw. or even better, look at your character's flowcharts, easily available online, and see if you can get in a float that'll do more damage than a throw would after a guaranteed throw move.

as for my choosing a character, it took my floundering with a couple of characters with whom i wasn't comfortable/competent before i learned enough about the game's mechanics to do well with... well, anyone. period. once i felt that i was knowledgeable about the game's mechanics (spending quite a bit of time in the trial training mode and getting beaten up by my roommates' jacky and lau along the way), i felt that i should start with a new character. for whatever reason, vanessa interested me, and that's who i stuck with. i didn't spend a considerable amount of time on another character until my vanessa was on par with my roommates' characters, who had formidable head starts. i've recently expanded to serious pai play because she's so darned fun to play.

sorry my tone may have seemed a bit vitriolic earlier in the post. it's just that i have these steve-urkelesque neighbors who are always coming over to my apt sans invitation and saying stupid things and they never feel it necessary to do anything productive in training mode if they feel it necessary to go to training mode at all. grrr. they have filled up our memory cards with their garbage-ass characters and have only recently decided to commit to any characters. i was just letting loose my frustration at angus and bubba from mississippi (not their real names. but they're really from ms. inbreeding does happen.)

happy fighting,
william

 

While a version of Jeff with Jacky's speed would certainly be overpowered, Akira with controls like Jeff would not - he'd just be faster at high levels and completely own the game at low levels.

 

control inputs means nothing to high level players. if they can think it, it can be done.

 

[ QUOTE ]
control inputs means nothing to high level players. if they can think it, it can be done.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhm. I mentioned this above but what about hopping, would-be m-dbpm's? Seriously, as IceCold intimates, how much more often would you see evade>DBC if the command were Dural's rather than Akira's +? Control inputs mean something at ALL levels. Sure, they mean less to someone who mainlines the game 30 hours a week & wins at an 85% clip than they do to someone who "can't do knee", but there's still aways to go between the ol' brain and those nimble (or stubby, well-trained) fingers.

 

I believe I've just stepped into the realm of the "intermediate player", and I owe it all to one thing; trying out a character that I hated. I was an exclusive Jeffery player, but wanted to have a customized version of every character (just because, no particular reason). Lion was probably my most hated character, but once I started using him, I realized that I started grasping vf concepts much better. This, in turn, improves my Jeff (and all the other characters), so my suggestion to you is to give the character you refuse to use (Akira, Jacky) a try. Poking definitely wasn't my style, but I've warmed up to it, and now Lion is my main character.

Like you replicant, I miss Taka. It's my secret wish that Sega has made him a secret character for the home version (that can be used in all of the game modes). Of course, I'm very skeptical, but one can still hope /versus/images/graemlins/smirk.gif.

 

The thing isn't that I refuse to play a character all together. It's just that some I do not feel right when I play them. With Akira I can do the SPoD and DLC which were hard for me to get at first. Although, I am not good at doing them in a match and it's 50/50 that I hit them in training. Jacky I do pretty good with and stay about 75% against friends and kumite, but he doesn't feel quite comfortable.

It's hard to say how I view most of the characters. I like characters that flow. Example would be that I am a Kazuya player in Tekken (T2, TTT, T4), because he is smooth and natural. Good damage, good hand movement to on-screen movement, and great guessing games. Akira doesn't have that smoothness to him, because you are having to do harder movements that don't coincide with what you are doing on-screen. I like the damage potential of Akira, Jacky, and Lau, but they just don't seem right for me.

I'm still playing them all and looking for the right one. Next week things will get interesting as Evo comes out and I get to play it for the first time. I am very interested in playing as Brad and Goh. Also, Pai and Vanessa seem to have been enhanced quite a bit as well. I will definitely be making a decision soon. It's just hard, because since VF4 came out it has been a quest. VF1,2, and 3 weren't hard decisions for me at all.

 

My 2 main characters are Akira and Lion, with Pai and Shun as my 3rd and 4th best characters. When Evo hits, I'm hoping to add Goh and Brad.

Lion - I've always digged his style and I've used him since VF2 so I immediately took to him in VF4. He's the tourney character I use.

Akira - I just started using him a few weeks ago, but I've got over 1000 matches with him and now I'm really starting to feel the confidence when I play him. That's very important when playing a character, to make sure you got confidence when using them and you know what to do in any, or at least, most situations. He's actually getting close to tourney material for me, and I'm sure I'll bring him out at TiT5.

Pai - Been playing her since VF3, but didn't use her in VF4 until a few months ago. She's really fun to play and while I haven't touched her much since picking up Akira, I still like her and I'll pick her up again in Evo. I'm sure she'll make an appearance as well at TiT5.

Shun - Used him since VF2, but for VF4 I couldn't get into his style for some reason. I picked him up the same time I started using Pai and eventually I got the hang of him. Haven't used him much either since Akira came into town, but I can still pick him and play ok. Still, he's the worst out of my 4 characters. Wouldn't use him in a serious tourney match for any reason, basically because I don't have that confidence with him yet.

But the only advice I can really give is don't be discouraged if you don't take to a certain character you're trying to learn immediately. Shun and Akira were two characters I didn't expect to learn, just because when I played them when VF4 first came out, and when I picked them occasionally months after it's release, I would suck ass with them. But I just decided one day to stick with them, even if I did lose badly, and hundreds of matches later you really start to learn them. Even if it seems impossible at first, it's really not. Once you feel that confidence I was talking about earlier, then that's when you know you're starting to learn the character. Don't stop using a character that you really like just because you haven't reached that confidence yet. It takes some time, and more time for some characters then others, but it'll come.