One of the biggest appeals in character selection is self-expression, and that's one of the core ways that video games can meet our needs/desires as humans. I think the biggest problem with playing top tiers for many people is that it feels like its damaging the ability to express oneself through a character when they are both strong and popular. You're no longer a unique character: just another akuma in the ocean of top-tiers online. I usually am drawn to A tier characters, not S tier and I think thats why. I have no shame in playing strong characters and don't want to hamstring myself with a bad toolset, but I need to feel like I'm doing something unique, and can stand out. In college I used to play smash4 a lot with friends. I played Palutena pretty often, who was pretty uncommon at the time. I got a lot of satisfaction out of hearing people say things like "I've never seen anyone play Palutena like that" and "Palutena isn't that good, but YOUR Palutena is top-tier." If i was playing bayonetta, I would never hear things like that. The discussion would either be "Bayo is good" or maybe even "you're good". Even if I got credit, I would still be "A bayo player" not "THE bayo player"
The only thing that wasn't talked about here that I'm thinking about is the feeling of having a unique identity. I played Jiren and play Krillin in DBFZ partly because Krillin does what I want to do with the game and partly because I'm the ONLY Krillin in the province I live in and he's not a very popular character in general. It was tight going to my first local and hearing 2 people behind me say "woah we have a Krillin player now?" like my character made me stand out and worth attention. I like being "the Krillin guy" more than being "one of the Gohans". It's motivating to show off what my less-seen character can do.
In my friend group they banned wolf(ssbu) from being played because they were losing to a person in our friend group winning with wolf. Rather than playing a different character or taking the L and realizing he’s better with a character that complements his play style.
@@HighLanderPonyYT wolf is possibly the most fundies character in the game. His entire kit revolves around winning neutral through reads. The idea that they would ban wolf is, as you said, scrub mentality
For me, I think part of it is wanting to be "Unique." Low-tier means (in theory) less people are playing them, so you can feel like the Underdog when you win more. In contrast, playing a top-tier character can also feel like "you got carried" or "this character doesnt require skill" so your win feels less earned. I think Linne/Yumi is really fun in BBTAG, but Yumi is stupid easy and gets alot of damage and stuff without really needing to work for it, so I kinda feel cheap playing her when she's also considered so top-tier and I know she works with everybody. On the other hand, I've also played Linne/Heart, and Heart is considerably weaker, but I also feel like cause so many less people play her, less people know how to play against her, and cause of that, I can do Heart's cheap mix-ups over and over cause they dont know the tricks to get around it. Yet I feel better playing Heart than I do playing Yumi, despite the fact Yumi has clear weakness that people can get around, and Heart can be considerably more cheap just cause someone doesnt know to jump before I can do my homing, or know how to get around the 5BB mix-up. I dont think wanting to pick a Top-tier/low-tier is always about being able to shift blame when you lose. Sometimes people just want to feel like they've "earned" their victory a bit more, and if you're playing a top-tier, you can easily put yourself down by saying "I won just cause my character was good, it doesnt feel as earned" while conversely, your wins feel more earned if you play someone who's weaker, cause you can tell yourself you worked harder to get the win. Usually this isnt prompted by the other person saying anything to me, its just me saying it to myself.
This is exactly what I came here to say! I think it just feels good to learn with a “low-tier” character because you can’t make excuses for why you won - you get to say with full confidence “I won this match because I was good enough,” which feels nice when you’re someone who struggles to give yourself credit
I actually feel the opposite honestly, when I started playing fighterz I thought beerus was super cool but his options and pressure were so obscure to me that I didn't really have any room to learn with him at my low level. Now that his neutral has improved I feel less pressured to play the character perfectly and I'm having a ton of fun with the game. Sometimes, playing a low tier just bottlenecks your skill and slows down the learning process.
100% agree, sometimes low tiers are so unintuitive that you spend more time learning their unique mechanics or setups than learning the fundamentals of a new game. The term bottleneck perfectly describes how it slows your progress
For me it’s for diversity. I can’t stand mirror matches and I can’t stand how we beg for developers to make 50+ characters and then everyone uses the same 2 or 3. So I find myself enjoying obscure but decent characters. In team games I usually run an obscure point and at least one top tier support (Majin Buu for example is my point in DBFZ with Bardock at mid). There’s also the slight advantage online of opponents being unfamiliar with your character. So yeah, I don’t necessarily care that someone is top tier as much as I want diversity
I'll be perfectly honest... I avoid top tiers because: 1- Lower chance of receiving a Nerf Bomb 2- Less people know the matchup 3- OP chars don't let me improve my fundamentals
#2. Best damn reason. Nothing is more satisfying than hearing "Yo tf was THAT!?" Over the mic when you pull some of the most janky low-tier tech that makes melee wavedashing look normal.
Well this is what happened to wagner main in uni . There is a lot of wagner in tournament to the point that everyone knows the matchup and no wagner main enter top 8 evo. And i heard in uniclr she got nerf and no wagner main like the changes
3 isn‘t true though. It‘s on you if you don‘t improve fundamentals. Don‘t get me wrong, I know what you‘re trying to say. But that isn‘t a problem of a char being op, it‘s just you having played that char for so long, you‘ll plateau eventually. Switching characters helps a lot. 1st you‘ll know this other character better and 2nd you‘ll have to use different strategies, you‘ll see different interactions etc. and you can take those things back to your main, regardless if he was op or not, you learned something you wouldn‘t have learned with your main because you used a different char. That‘s my opinion though.
StylesClashFGC I wonder how he got busted so quickly lmao. I don’t remember him getting buffs. I also suffered through months of playing skarlet but only because I liked the character, now I play sindel XD.
You see, Sajam, this is why I only pick characters from S-/A+. Strong enough to win, bad enough to not attract attention. Reaping all the benefits without the downsides.
Don't tell them that...cause when I beat them with a low tier character, they're gonna flip out and lose their mind "But I was told that if I pick top tier I would win!?" Then now you got some sore ass loser throwing a fit and his controller.
There is one thing that many people hate, and that's mirror match. Now if you're playing top tier character, expect to have mirror match most of the time.
@@cursinsquirl It's a mental thing. Let's assume the mirror match is with your main. This tests your knowledge with your main and how you perform against someone with, assumedly, as much or more knowledge of your character. I remember someone commenting on a video with this same idea, I think. Then again, this is looking at it from an online perspective
I wouldn't say I feel bad, just that I sometimes I find the top tier option less interesting; it depends. Sometimes the strongest option is also the easiest option and it's boring af to play. Like cubelock in Hearthstone. Some other times if that character is that "bullshit" they are just tainted in my mind and I don't want to touch them, they disgust me. That being said, I have no problem with other people playing them and will never criticize fellow players for their choice of character. That I cannot relate with. And other times, wins are just more satisfying knowing it is an uphill battle. If you are playing for fun it's okay to set what makes it fun for you. I haven't watched the video at this point btw. edit: If I love the character on sight though, I don't care much about the tier (my second might just be top tier tho).
Exactly, I enjoy playing mid tiers because there's more bad matchups which challenges you more. Like you can't just throw out any move and win you have to actually push your limits.
I'm the same way, I like having many tools but not if I feel they just win me games or something. It's much more satisfying to win feeling that I earned it. If a character is top tier but difficult to play, I enjoy them, tho. That, and playing an unpopular character feels better to me. Like another person said, I wouldn't wanna be another Ryu in a sea of Ryu's.
If everyone is playing the S-tier character for your game, then if you play that character, then you're playing the same character as everyone else, and that's boring. It's not about wanting your character to be bad, it's wanting to be able to express your particular style of play without feeling like a copycat or crowd-follower.
I think this is it. When you play the top tier characters it just kinda feels like you're following a crowd or copying someone. Even though it's not this way it FEELS like you cant be unique while playing the most mainstream characters.
So its about being a hipster, these arguments are so silly. No one in basketball cares about using the same strategy, no one in league cares about using the meta, no one in overwatch league compares about the meta. Just play the people you want and stop having excuses.
Then just advance the meta for that character. Discover a new tech or come up with your own combo. Ontop of that you can bring your playstyle to that character so they play differently.
The easy answer should be: Play who you like, you will have more succes than picking the character based on strenght. Started Granblue with Katalina, had no fun with her, then went to Metera and have fun since then. People shouldn't care about their character strenght, just pick what you enjoy the most, will get you the furthest.
This is great unless your favorite character is so top tier they're broken. I don't play Guilty Gear because my favorite characters are Justice and Robo-Ky. Justice is just outright BANNED due to being a broken boss character, and Robo-Ky was so overpowered that winning with him means nothing. "Of course you won, you play Robo-Ky" "You LOST?! How do you LOSE with Robo-Ky!". There's no satisfaction. You can't explain that you play these characters because you love them, nah you're only playing them because they're top tier.
@@GELTONZ The moment you care about this, you lose. As I started to play Melty, I picked a character who is literal braindead easy and Top Tier at the same time, being ridicoulis at basically everything. Why? Well I liked her, why should I care how good she is in the end? I like the damn character. Play the damn character you like, it is that simple. If you care about satisfaction in winning, then you didn't want to play what you like to begin with.
I agree, but I think this is why I get a bit frustrated when I see people talking about who's the top tier in a manner to pick them up because they're strong. That's quite noticeable with streamers for example, somehow a lot of them end up playing the top tier characters and switching to the new top tiers whenever there's a patch. I don't intend to criticize their fun but for me it makes me feel less connected to the community because I don't see the reasons I play the game in other people.
@@ciphercdr3349 who exactly is that character? Never bothered with tierlists. A pal and I played it every now and then and settled on crescent style kohaku and ciel respectively. They broken or nah?
2B on launch. As for not wanting to be "That good" there's also the fear of the nerf hammer. Many of the tag Noel players I talk with don't want her to be top tier, because they know there's a good chance that she'll be buried again
I started avoiding playing characters I perceive as strong just because all my friends stopped playing fighting games with me, one of which even broke their controller I really don't enjoy making people angry but I guess it just means I need more fighting game friends who take losses well instead of just not playing the characters I want to altogether
Your friend's problem isn't with your character so much as it is his temper. If he childishly broke his controller over a character, then that's on them to grow the fuck up.
Yeah unfortunately that's a problem you can't fix imo Fighting games take a lot of humility to play for any length of time, because there's no one to blame but yourself And most people can't hack that
That's really the crux of it. I only ever had one fighting game group who saw losing as the way to improve, and surprise surprise they were the most fun people to play with ever. We were constantly improving, no one got salty, we all laughed about how broken some options were and how weak others were, and kept hitting rematch. It was a blast. Everyone else I've played with gets down on themselves for losing or tilted after getting bopped for more than 3 games straight. Most of my friends don't play fighting games as much as they talk about wanting to play fighting games :\
I played Blanka in SF4 who everyone agreed was bad and i've literally never got more hatemail/annoyed comments. I hit a guy with 11 st.MP's in one round in tournament and he told me I was winning due to gimmicks.
My process for picking a character: 1) Who looks cool 2) Pick the cool character, does he/she feel good to play Done. Sometimes I luck into good characters like A. Gohan and other times I end up maining Phoenix Wright. I admit that sometimes I want to play some characters that are cool (Beerus), but are missing tools that make me drop them if I’m playing seriously. Nothing wrong with that, just how it goes.
In rare cases there are characters that truly break the game. But they are few and far between. More often there are annoying/simply superior characters that can be dealt with if you have proper fundamentals. But even in those rare cases, why feel empty? They have the same choice you do to pick that character and be on an even playing field. This is in contrast to something like competitive sports: coaches, owners can't just choose to have their own Lebron James. Your team is better, it wins. There is no shame in it; it's competition. My favorite extreme example is someone being pitted against a tiger. Are you going to care that you have a rifle that renders the animal's superior strength moot? No, you used your intelligence to win. It's smart to pick better characters. That is all there is to it.
@@PathBeyondTheDark because there is art and expression within competition. You can be driven purely by the desire to win, that's cool. But I enjoy the dance of the fight, the rhythm, the mind games, the GAME. In the end, for me, a game (Chess, Football, Boxing or Tekken) should be stimulating. It's about far more than just who wins in the end
@@ens0246 Fair. Neither side of this argument should be degrading the other, accept everyone plays for different reasons and move on. But often times you have one side belittling the other, especially if it impedes on their fun. But one thing you cannot do in competition is control how someone plays. That is their right.
@@PathBeyondTheDark Yeah. I used to do it too. Sometimes I might even catch myself still. It's a difficult habit to break. I think maybe it partly stems from the culture of trash talk too. I find a lot of people are in trash talk mode permanently and instead of it coming off as theatrics they just come across as dicks. Also it's harder to tell by just reading text because you don't have tone of voice. But then it's also been seen at tournaments with people screaming behind a competitor's ear lol.
I like to play low tiers because i like finding diamonds in the rough. I like to see a more diverse set playstyles, and that can only be done if we explore other options. Being special has an appeal as well..
For me, I tend to play lower tier characters partially because the archetypes I gravitate towards (grapplers, slow/heavy hitters) usually aren't high tier. However, I honestly don't usually like playing top tier characters because I prefer to play from a state of perceived disadvantage. I think winning feels better when I feel like I've outplayed you despite my opponents' inherent advantage. For me, playing low tier is not necessarily a shield against loss, but rather a badge of pride upon victory. Similarly, I don't like playing top-tier characters because I dislike feeling like I won because of overwhelming advantage on a matchup level. I'll play characters who are high in the tierlist, but I don't like playing characters that considered the best. Of course, playstyle and aesthetic also matter a lot to me. At the end of the day I will only ever main a character if I truly like them/like playing them. Furthermore, I will not discredit somebody else for playing a high-tier. Example- when I started playing Unist, I first played Enkidu because I thought he was the coolest member of the cast. I then also started playing Wagner as a secondary because she's also pretty cool. However, as I started to get better/watch more high level play, I realized just how good Wagner was, and just how bad Enkidu was. I dropped Wagner because I didn't want to play somebody who was considered a 'problem' character. After sticking with Enkidu a bit, I figured that it would be more worthwhile to pick up somebody else if I wanted to seriously get better. So, I searched for a bit before deciding on Gordeau, who both fits my playstyle/I think is cool, but is also pretty high tier. Now that Uniclr is out, I might switch back to Enkidu, but at the same time I don't know if I want to play him if he's really that good. Plus, I do really like gordeau... Does that make sense? Am I a pansy who's too chicken to pick a high tier? I dunno. At the end of the day, I play characters that I feel the best playing.
To answer this it isn't so much a matter of being top tier it's being boring. And a lot of the time that comes from degeneracy not strength in itself. A good example of this was Leroy I didn't play him when he first came out cause he had a bunch of overtuned, brain dead moves. Not only that but everyone was playing him cause he was OP and that makes the character meta stale very quickly. It just wasn't fun.
The reason I try not to play a top tier is that I don't want there to be any excuse to say that I didn't beat an opponent. I won because I outplayed my opponent, not because my character is inherently better. The distinction for me is very important.
Every character will have some kind of advantage over each other, Scrubs will find every other excuse, you shouldn't care about said scrubs excuses for losing. Unless you guys are mirror matching, things are inherently unbalanced.
Here’s how it is at least for me. I don’t really get satisfaction from winning easily. I get way more hype and satisfaction if I have to work hard to survive in a hard matchup, and make really clutch reads that lead to victory. That sort of hype moment is what I like about fighting games. If I can win without much effort, that sense of surmounting a difficult obstacle just isn’t there. Winning is nice, but I’m not one of those people who either wins and has a good time, or loses and has a bad time. Its more how I get to the win that matters, and doing that with characters that are easy to win with just, isn’t as fun. Also, if none of the top tiers have a play style that I like, then I won’t play them. Period.
for me, i like the idea of being that guy that's really good with this character that's perceived as bad, rather than being just another rashid main that wins because the character is cheap. i know it's not really the case because you still have to play rashid well (rashid just being an example here obviously). there's also the idea that other people get to play against characters they might not get to see much instead of just constantly playing against ryus, getting to change it up a bit. i think it just mostly comes down to standing out from the crowd, being a snowflake, whatever you wanna call it, and the feeling of knowing you won because you're personally skilled rather than just because your character has cheap moves you can abuse.
I think most people dont want to constantly get flamed for being carried by a character as to being recognized for personal skill. The thing is, the same is true on the opposite spectrum, "I didnt even know the character existed! You won coz ive never played the MU." IMO think its easier to blame character choice as to recognize personal skill.
I generally gravitate to characters with high execution and cool combos. Like, in gbvs I played katalina for a bit cause she was strong and simple, but once I labbed Narmaya, I stuck with her cause of her combos and mixups, even though I know kat is stronger. There's a part of me that knows I won't put in the same effort in learning if I get bored playing a character. I'm shameless when it comes to tiers btw. Like, I picked zato-1 in xrd cause he was cheap as fuck but needed dedication to learn how to play him. I still play him after the rev2 nerfs, not out of pride, but simply for not having practiced other characters to play instead.
No one rembers the 567:st ryu player but people remeber the one Gen player in sf4 who showed of the gen loop in a tournament for the first time and won the whole thing.
I think there's a distinction between picking top tier and picking a broken character. While all broken characters are top tier, not all top tier characters are broken.
When a character is weak, there's a higher likelihood that the character is used less, and sometimes I like picking an underrepresented character. Also it feels good knowing that other people find your character difficult to use. I know that doesn't apply to all mid/low tiers but still. I don't find anything wrong with picking a top tier, but I understand the mentality of "feeling bad" to the point where it no longer feels fun or deserved. I mean that mentality is a personal issue, but I can respect it.
It can also give you an advantage since people probably won't know how to counter an underused character as much as they will a character they run into every other match.
I've been playing Lancelot since the beta and really enjoy him. However my favorite character is Zeta but, honestly, I'm not touching her untill she gets some buffs, I do not have nearly as much fun playing her as I do playing Lancelot right now.
If you see the same combos over and over and have GREAT frame data, better options, safe options, mix ups, set ups, OFC it's the character. On paper it's called having an ADVANTAGE(s). Also there's like a universal if not majority mindset of wanting for an underdog player using a low tier character to win against a top tier character. The point of nerfing and buffing is to balance everything as much as possible without taking the uniqueness of every character.
I think a lot of people dont want get to shit for playing a character they love so some people will hover around good characters or hype characters to avoid getting shit.
Its ayt I was told jin and ragna are easy to lern when my friends introduced me to blazblue. I saw noel and asked "what about her?" And they all said shes actually a bad character. I felt bad, and now i guess i still play noel.
One time I refused to pick the top tier was in the original console release of UNIB. I was interested in Gordeau, but I only play with people much more casual than me. I was afraid I'd burn them out super hard with that broken character.
There is a large range of factors in this, You have strong as in busted characters, boring to play, boring to fight. And then you have strong characters because of how many tools and abilities they have to fight and play with/against.
It seems like I'm in the minority here. I like playing characters that are hard *because* they are hard. I get close to zero satisfaction when I win with an easy/cheap top tier (top tiers are almost always easy/cheap) because I know I didn't have to work hard to get good at playing that character. It feels like a cheap victory. I don't care what excuses the scrubs come up with to explain why they lost. I just want my victories to feel satisfying. That's why I main Vatista in UNICLR and Kazuya in Tekken 7.
I pick characters based upon how much I like their super tbh. That legit carries the most weight for me. That said I don't like playing characters that are super strong because if they are legitimately unbalanced it feels like cheating. Also, it's harder to develop good fundamentals on a character with lots of options and "cheap" abilities. The character can cover your weaknesses in a way that could potentially inhibit your growth as a player.
@@wowiwhwbw Spot on my man. I don't want holes in my game cause my character it strong. I want to win by outplaying my opponent. Having really strong options works against that somewhat.
i dunno i started playing Kazuya recently and i really enjoy it. He has soooo many options that King just didn’t really have and i vibe with him more than Hwo who i was maining before.
@@jwm1444 The character vibe is the more important part imo. King is really strong though. Mishima options are hella good but King is no lower than A tier.
SomeBlackDude oh yeah, i got to brawler pretty quick with King and i usually don’t not go on rolls with chars like i did with King so i’m not trying to downplay, but Kaz covered the one hole King’s game had, good low mixes
Just play whoever you find the most fun and fits your play style the best. Your friends might complain a bit, but they’re getting matchup experience against a top tier, so it’s win-win. Now if you feel a top tier character is carrying you and you want to develop a more well-rounded skill set, then switching characters might be an option. But don’t just play a character because they’re low tier, then complain about others playing high/top tiers
Here's how I choose: Male character: if hes legitimately a cool character with good combos and a bit of depth. Females: If I want them to beat me up. That's why I main Android 18 in Fighterz, Jacqui Briggs in MK and Vanessa from KOF.
Only time this mentality makes sense is when a character is completely broken. Like if a character/weapon etc is so good that it's universally banned or has far more unfair advantages than others with little to no trade off then I could see not wanting to add the already likely large pool of people using them. Essentially if it reduces the game to "if you don't pick X then you're playing handicapped" then I could see that mentality being valid. No one wants to play a game where only 1 or 2 characters are valid and if you play someone else you may as well be playing at 50% hp. I realize in fighting games that scenario almost never happens but in other genres it can be pretty prevalent and really can either ruin or severally reduce the enjoyment of the game for all players.
I think a good example of this is Petshop from JBA: Heritage for the Future. That character has the smallest hitbox (only rivaled by stand-off iggy), and is the only character that can fly. Combined with super powerful moves, he is the only char in the game that most people avoid playing. Tekken 7's Leroy (inital release) was also a good example of this, he was just unparalleled in quality of his moves, he just had no weakness.
I feel the whole discussion is moot when you come to the realization that most of the people complaining about losing and such will always complain because they are incapable of accepting their own failure. Still, I'm in the camp that I may be unwilling to pick a character if I know it's the best of the best, but only if I don't generally like the character. For example since vanilla DBFZ I have mained Cell because he was so fun to play as and is my favorite villain. I didn't care he was top tier, I just had fun. When Goku GT dropped I didn't even want to try him out because I knew how busted he was, but at the same time I don't really care much about Goku GT. When Granblue came out I thought of playing Zeta just based on looks. Since I didn't get the game until it came to PC, Narmaya was already out so I ended up maining her (it started based on looks, but the gameplay clicked as well). If Narmaya wasn't a thing I think I would be toughing it out with Zeta.
Great video! But for me there is 1 idea you are missing. I play ice climbers in melee, considered to be around 8th-11th best in the game. Now even if ice climbers magically became top tier or even the best character in the game, I would still play them, but I wouldn't play a character like Sheik or Puff if they were the best. Why? Because IC's (perhaps more than any other character in the game) have the ability to majorly disrespect and humiliate the opponent. They have a controversial infinite which some tournaments are banning. This infinite is so powerful, that banning it instantly drops them to 12th-15th. In order for them to remain even remotely viable, a lot of insane combos with extremely high execution barriers need to be learnt. I go to a local tournament which doesn't ban the infinite, but I choose to not use it anyway because if I win, my opponent will be humiliated and extra salty. There is nothing he can complain about now. Now I know the premise of your video is to not care about what other people think and to ignore the complainers, but it doesn't address the satisfaction attained from disrespecting the opponent. Maybe I'm a psychopath but that's what brings me true enjoyment in playing; not winning with my favorite character, but winning with my favorite character and breaking my opponents soul.
When I do pick low tier characters, this is the reason. If someone beats me, then I fucked up and they played better than me. Simple as that. It's not about having a shield to OS complaints. It's about picking someone I like and proving the tier lists wrong! aMSa single-handedly bumped Yoshi up the tier lists in Melee back when everyone thought the character was trash and I think that's really cool.
there are 2 things to this that kind of thinking that comes to mind when people mention this. if i happen to pick a strong character, i might not now how to access what makes that character strong so it kind of doesn't matter anyways. but if i don't want to be accused of winning by just picking the right character i can feel safe picking a weak character because i'll know i've beat the opponent on my own merits. there's also that sweet victory if you know you had the cards stacked against you that those wins feels extra special because of it. it's kind of like beating a boss that's been whooping you for a long time and you finally succeed. but in general i don't really look at tier list for what characters i should play, it's more so a curious of what the community thinks and feels about certain characters. i base my character choices more off of the abilities and the appearance of a character more so than anything else. because if i don't enjoy the character i can't really enjoy the game personally.
I like playing fighting game characters that feel like they are an extension of my own skill and my own design preferences. If I win with a top tier, I will feel its because of the character, not my own ability. That's why I'm attracted to upper B tier and lower A tier characters.
I mostly play based on aesthetics, mechanics and cool factor. I really like #21's absorb mechanic, and she's hot, so i tried different teams with her. Nothing really clicked until Broly and Cooler entered the stage, which had really satisfying impact int heir moves, and they looked sick! So was born my 1st main team, Broly/21/cooler. Christened it the "Double ham sandwhich". Now, i roll with DBS Broly/21/Brolly, tentatively called "The double broccoli Burger".
This video made me think of the whole situation with H-box and Jigglypuff. So much complaining about the strength of the character and the way the pace of the game was altered. Very little credit for the player for being able to do that well in high stakes fights. Edit: or at least, that's the impression I got after 10 minutes of Internet research.
For me personally, It just feels a little bit more satisfying to win characters that are not considered "strong". It kinda forces me play smarter because their options suck.
I don't really mind picking a top or low tier, it just always happen that the character I like the most ends up being low tier. Also the reason I would avoid playing a top tier is because I don't really wanna play the character that everyone else is using. But at the end of the day, I just pick the character that I think I like the most in looks or gameplay, regardless of tier.
The only things that matter to me when picking characters are: 1. Do I have fun playing them? 2. Are they a cute girl? If they meet either criteria I'll play them.
It comes down to memories of beating your friends who don't care about the game as much as you do who no longer wanted to play with you because you trounced them. You play someone your not as good with, your friends wins a few games (or comes close) and you get to keep playing.
My personal opinion is the most important thing is to just have fun with the character your playing wheteher it's top tier or low tier , I like low tiers because I think they are the most fun to play, For example Mk11 Kollector day 1. Now do you need to feel bad for playing top tier? I would say it depends on how you feel , Do you think your winning when you shouldn't? Do you think that they look strong but boring to play? It depends on how you feel. I don't like playing top tiers because I like working for the win instead of just take it easily. But it's not bad to have a pocket top tier in case of emergency.
When it's top tier vs top tier, which it is more and more as you climb ranked, you feel like you earned it. And when you beat a low tier main, do you feel bad? No, if they complain, you just tell them to come at you with an S-tier then
@@omrizubary thanks. And yeah, if you actually lose to their pocket top tier, you really gotta hold that, because usually when someone does that they only perform worse with their pocket.
you still have a bad mindeset imo. No matter who you play you have to work for the win. Sure you might get a couple shutouts but, the idea that playing a top tier means you don't have to work for it is pretty rude to people who invested time to get good and understand that playing a top tier is the best way to win at higher levels.
I can see one reason to avoid picking top tier being that if they have one option that's overcentralizing that makes them OP, it usually translates into an unidimentional and brain dead gameplan. However, if they're OP because their entire kit is great, ppl have noooo reason to bitch around.
So Leroy was a good character to release and deserved to have an neutral mid CH launcher, a homing hellsweep, a orbital that is -3 on block, safe long range homing attacks, the best parry, a d/f+1 with extensions that is -1 on block, spectacular combo damage, and be easy to play?
WIth me, I don't want to pick top tier's even if I like the character's design/playstyle because nowadays you always have the paranoia that the dev's will over correct and nerf them into the ground. Then if the nerf is too hard you have to relearn a whole new character.
I think my issue is not whether or not a character is top tier, but how popular that character is. I'm not sure where it stems from, but there's a small sense of pride that comes from using a character you don't see very often. There's also the idea of being the person that shows people the strengths of a character that they believe in. To play an established top tier is one thing, but to be the one to show a character's potential is another.
While I don’t like the idea of playing a weak character, the thought of playing a character that seems overwhelmingly strong does bring me a small worry that if I can’t win with them, what does that say about me? Etc. Even with an A-tier I suppose the OS still exists.
Leroy in Tekken 7 is a strong argument for this mindset. I didn't pick nor even buy Leroy due to his balance. He was just way too good and it's not interesting for me to see the same character all the time. Instead of contributing to the bloat of Leroys EVERYWHERE I absolutely refused to buy him. I play Asuka and I'm fine at mid-tier, although with all the Mishima buffs I do wish I had a couple more tools to open people up.
And then on top of that Leroy isn't even fun. There's not much that's interesting or unique about him, he just has every tool and the numbers on the frame data are busted. Waste if a cool design
Balleet To me it was more or less that it was a waste to learn how to play him because he was obviously going to get nerfed. So it didn’t make sense to establish a playstyle which may not be viable long term.
It doesn’t matter how good a character is or how strong their tools are if the person that’s playing with them doesn’t know how to utilize them effectively
I think a big part of it is also trying to prove other people wrong, picking someone percieved to be low tier and showing everyone that they can punch up
4:22 - "Maybe it's the repetition of fighting a popular character" Based on my professional experience working on game balance I would say that the ammount of complaints about a certain character being overpowered corelates much more with pick rate than win rate.
I personally love playing low tiers, not for the OS, if I lose I lose. I like seeing if there's anything untapped. I don't mind losing if I'm playing low tiers at all.
I get the mindset, but it should be noted that things aren't bad because they're popular. For me in fighting games, when choosing who I want to play, I pretend what if I lived in a white void with no outside influence. Who would I play? That's how I pick my characters.
@@bluegrave4376 Things ARE bad when they are too popular. Two of the main selling points of FGs is variety and self-expression. If everyone just wants to win and they all play the same broken shit with the same broken tactics it absolutely hurts the community. People start to feel like they can't even play their favorite character or just get sick of the same matchup over and over.
@@balleet210 That wasn't my point though. I meant that you should play whatever character you want because you like the character. For example, in dragonball, I play bardock not necessarily because he's good, but because he's one of my favorite characters in the series. I also play android 21, probably one of the less popular characters because I enjoyed the character from the story and like the design. That fact that one's popular and one's not is not a factor.
It always feels cooler to develop a character whole cloth opposed to watching a tutorial. Though go1 is probably gonna come up with a better game plan than you. :/
I have a different idea. I think there's this idea in "the journey" that if you win with a weak character you truly "earned" that win. If you won with a strong character, that win was not truly "earned". If you can make a weak character successful, it's because you put in the time and effort, whereas if you use a strong character obviously you put in a quarter of the time and only care about winning not about getting better and enjoying the game. This is dumb, but I could see this as the mind set in some folk. I say pick whom you want, enjoy your wins, and learn from your loses. Every match is a new opportunity unto itself to grow.
I usually just pick characters that visually appeal to me lol. Bonus points for crowd favorites, I love riling people up. That first time you get a crowd going is instantly addicting. I can enjoy most playstyles but for whatever reason the characters I think look good usually end up being the high risk high reward read based ones.
I know it’s an old video but a big concern for me personally when it comes to picking a top tier is getting carried - being up there in high ranks with bad fundamentals can feel quite bad
ive fought against this mindset since i really got into fighting games and have developed the mindset that if i lose, no matter how strong the character, no matter how bad the matchup, if i lose, its my fault and i just have to find the workaround for whoever im using. i am aware that there are some really bad matchups but im just stubborn about my own beliefs and i can accept a brutal loss knowing its my fault and could be better. and also props to whoever bodies me of course lol
The big thing is that in a lot of games, top top tier placement sometimes means that the character has options that are so comprehensively powerful that they end up watering down your decision-making when you play them, so they become LESS fun, not more. A practical recent example that comes to mind is Foxof42's tweets about Vatista in UNICLR: twitter.com/foxof42/status/1229085524343820289 twitter.com/foxof42/status/1239379945715097600 Presumably, a big part of the appeal of the character for him was flexibility, in combo routing (knockdown vs damage, for example) and in overall gameplay (compensating for weaknesses and adjusting for tough matchups). But now (or at least at the time of writing), "There's no area where this character lacks. She absolutely has it all, and her worst MUs have only become easier." I think that this is a perfectly understandable reason to not be too happy about your main getting big buffs.
I do kinda guilt myself into feeling like I'm ruining the game if I start using someone or thing thats considered "OP". I remember getting into Crosstag and feeling like a dirtbag for picking up Ruby.
That's a healthy way to look at the game though. I can't stand the thoughtless "omg nothing is OP who cares about the game being fun for anyone win win win" mentality, and how obnoxiously it's pushed as the default. At the end of the day both players/teams are ultimately playing games for fun and taking such a dismissive view of interacting with other people is just cunty
The only reason I'd avoid playing a top tier character is that modern patching means they'll get nerfed just for being good, even if they're about right for the game's overall power level. But apart from that? Hell yes. Having tools is fun, I just like having better game pieces than the opponent (so long as the match doesn't turn into a farce, too much advantage is too much). It's a very nice feeling to know that if something is frustrating, my character likely has the tools to deal with it, and I just have to learn to use them. With a low tier character that's not necessarily the case. It's nice to know my losses are by and large my fault, it prevents the buildup of a toxic mindset where you give yourself excuses. Lose with a top tier, the problem is between chair and controller.
Pre nerf Leroy from tekken 7 is a perfect example. He was so good that if you had half a brain it was basically a guaranteed win. In tournaments he was used specifically because he was better than the rest of the cast not because he looked cool
I don't think playing a strong character is something to be ashamed of. But things like using their tools to scrap out wins online is less respectable. As long as you play them cleanly and not as a crutch I would be okay with it. But any character I play MUST have a command throw.
I recently had this with Xrd for like 10 mins when my friend ,and the entire community from what I can see, said Elphelt was a lame top tier and super easy. I dont find her easy, but I do find her lame, and thats exactly what makes her so fun. throwing exploding fruit at people on wake up and running up with my shotgun is really cool. Shes also really cute
Thank you for this video, I've been struggling with this for years. I always hoped my favorites weren't top tier bc I've been harassed in the past (called a tier whore etc) and had my worth as a player automatic devalued when they found out who I played. I've been trying to get over that in the past year with a whole idgaf attitude and it's working p well actually. I never had the concern so I could blame my character, I just wanted to avoid being hated on. My main issue is that I usually play characters I already love and I don't like when people assume I play a character just bc they're good bc that's usually not the case. Anyway thanks again sajam. :)
This is something I need to work on. In BBTAG I get sick of people running away from my waldstein (I lost in a local due to that), but I just don't understand why I never wanted to switch. Adachi would shut down a lot of that.
I don't want to play top tier characters, because: A) everyone plays them, and I'm not a boring bitch B) nobody can reasonably question my wins when I'm fighting against people who have objectively better characters
I played some DBFZ for the first time at a friend's house and the first character that clicked with me was Trunks, so I was was like "I'm making my team around this boy, I'm gonna main him." A little while after I bought the game and started practicing my team, then season 3 patch dropped and everybody is saying that Trunks is hella good now and I couldn't be happier. The character I feel more comfortable playing is also a strong character? That's a win/win.
So I understand this mindset pretty well and it has lost me a handful of locals. I used to play in alot of local tournaments for various games and I would typically avoid any strategy or tool that I decided was too unbalanced. An easy example was Halo 2 1v1s, I would strategically time and control certain power weapons like rockets or swords just to throw them off the map, depending on the map I would also take overshields and grenade myself back to normal shields and if the TO was dumb enough to allow the banshee on Ascent I would go far out of my way to either blow it up or fly it off the map. Instead of picking them up and running train against my opponent who spawns with only an SMG, I was baiting the power spawns for favorable engagements and refusing to snowball my advantage by picking them up after winning a fight over them. Instead I would run around with a battle rifle and sniper when I had control, and occasionally pick up a shotgun to counter if my opponent picked up a sword. I thought it was good sportsmanship to handicap myself where I disagreed with the ruleset. But honestly I could've proved my point way better by abusing everything I thought was unfair and if I won because of that I could more easily explain to the organizers why I think they should change their rules for the format to make it more fair and competitive in the future. I wouldn't recommend intentionally handicapping yourself. The misplaced sense of pride isn't worth it.
An aspect I don't think a lot of people consider is helping push the meta for underdeveloped characters. Most of the times Top tiers have a lot of "resources" and experience going on for them, while lower/mid tier characters have the "still kinda new or unknown" appeal. This is more evident for older games that don't experience patches, or gets patched very rarely, like Third Strike, Melee, and maybe Skullgirls.
i’m saying this on a three year old video but i often would pick “low tier” stuff across all genres of games purely because i never wanted anyone to be able to say i only beat them because of what character/build/deck i was using. turns out when you win with low tiers people will still message you about how u only won because ur build is a gimmick, “why are you running that garbage card (that beat them)”, etc. etc.
I mained Nago for the first year in strive. I couldn’t help but feel like my progress was stunted because I could get away with things that the rest of the cast couldn’t. My goal was never to just win but to improve. Since switching to ky until testament came out I have improved significantly. Initially after switching I dropped several floors and quickly confirmed my previous “concerns” Nago was hard carrying me. I even switched back to Nago briefly and climbed right back up to celestial challenges. All that to say I think some people just don’t want to feel like their accomplishments are unearned.
"Just pick top tier."
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Actually Sanford Kelly
I thought Gengis Khan said that...or was that Alexander the Great? "Just pick top tier, bruh!"
@@MartinPutniorz Sun Tzu Kelly
Confirmed, Sun Tzu was an Akuma main
@@P0rk_Sinigang wrong it was Francis the pope
I just play the characters I want to be or marry. With Ky, its both.
I feel this
Ky kiske?
As a Ky Main, I gotta agree.
GetterRay too real
Cheers fellow Ky mains!
One of the biggest appeals in character selection is self-expression, and that's one of the core ways that video games can meet our needs/desires as humans. I think the biggest problem with playing top tiers for many people is that it feels like its damaging the ability to express oneself through a character when they are both strong and popular. You're no longer a unique character: just another akuma in the ocean of top-tiers online. I usually am drawn to A tier characters, not S tier and I think thats why. I have no shame in playing strong characters and don't want to hamstring myself with a bad toolset, but I need to feel like I'm doing something unique, and can stand out.
In college I used to play smash4 a lot with friends. I played Palutena pretty often, who was pretty uncommon at the time. I got a lot of satisfaction out of hearing people say things like "I've never seen anyone play Palutena like that" and "Palutena isn't that good, but YOUR Palutena is top-tier." If i was playing bayonetta, I would never hear things like that. The discussion would either be "Bayo is good" or maybe even "you're good". Even if I got credit, I would still be "A bayo player" not "THE bayo player"
This is it
Well worded. S tier execution.
thats it. nothing about "feeling bad", though some silly players might
Thing is, even if you don't feel like you're just one in the sea of other XY players, you are.
Yeah the ult came out all my mains got buffed and I'm torn to keep playing them. But in sfv I have that issue with guile.
This is why I dont look at tier lists, I wanna play a character that feels good and fun to play, regardless of strength.
The only thing that wasn't talked about here that I'm thinking about is the feeling of having a unique identity. I played Jiren and play Krillin in DBFZ partly because Krillin does what I want to do with the game and partly because I'm the ONLY Krillin in the province I live in and he's not a very popular character in general. It was tight going to my first local and hearing 2 people behind me say "woah we have a Krillin player now?" like my character made me stand out and worth attention. I like being "the Krillin guy" more than being "one of the Gohans". It's motivating to show off what my less-seen character can do.
That is why I dropped Bowser because everyone played him at my local. It made me feel non unique.
But at the same time, if you’re able to become THE gohan at ur local scene that probably feels just as good, not that I’d know lol
7:26 "Eventually you will play a powerful character"
Oh, you think I'm not that petty?
In my friend group they banned wolf(ssbu) from being played because they were losing to a person in our friend group winning with wolf. Rather than playing a different character or taking the L and realizing he’s better with a character that complements his play style.
Scrubs.
@@HighLanderPonyYT wolf is possibly the most fundies character in the game. His entire kit revolves around winning neutral through reads. The idea that they would ban wolf is, as you said, scrub mentality
For me, I think part of it is wanting to be "Unique." Low-tier means (in theory) less people are playing them, so you can feel like the Underdog when you win more. In contrast, playing a top-tier character can also feel like "you got carried" or "this character doesnt require skill" so your win feels less earned. I think Linne/Yumi is really fun in BBTAG, but Yumi is stupid easy and gets alot of damage and stuff without really needing to work for it, so I kinda feel cheap playing her when she's also considered so top-tier and I know she works with everybody. On the other hand, I've also played Linne/Heart, and Heart is considerably weaker, but I also feel like cause so many less people play her, less people know how to play against her, and cause of that, I can do Heart's cheap mix-ups over and over cause they dont know the tricks to get around it. Yet I feel better playing Heart than I do playing Yumi, despite the fact Yumi has clear weakness that people can get around, and Heart can be considerably more cheap just cause someone doesnt know to jump before I can do my homing, or know how to get around the 5BB mix-up.
I dont think wanting to pick a Top-tier/low-tier is always about being able to shift blame when you lose. Sometimes people just want to feel like they've "earned" their victory a bit more, and if you're playing a top-tier, you can easily put yourself down by saying "I won just cause my character was good, it doesnt feel as earned" while conversely, your wins feel more earned if you play someone who's weaker, cause you can tell yourself you worked harder to get the win. Usually this isnt prompted by the other person saying anything to me, its just me saying it to myself.
This is exactly what I came here to say! I think it just feels good to learn with a “low-tier” character because you can’t make excuses for why you won - you get to say with full confidence “I won this match because I was good enough,” which feels nice when you’re someone who struggles to give yourself credit
I actually feel the opposite honestly, when I started playing fighterz I thought beerus was super cool but his options and pressure were so obscure to me that I didn't really have any room to learn with him at my low level. Now that his neutral has improved I feel less pressured to play the character perfectly and I'm having a ton of fun with the game.
Sometimes, playing a low tier just bottlenecks your skill and slows down the learning process.
Yes! A character to learn the game has to have options that aren't too obscure, but it also can't have too many pf them as you'll ger overehelmed
100% agree, sometimes low tiers are so unintuitive that you spend more time learning their unique mechanics or setups than learning the fundamentals of a new game. The term bottleneck perfectly describes how it slows your progress
“Ganondorf is top tier”
Sun tzu, the art of war
For me it’s for diversity. I can’t stand mirror matches and I can’t stand how we beg for developers to make 50+ characters and then everyone uses the same 2 or 3. So I find myself enjoying obscure but decent characters. In team games I usually run an obscure point and at least one top tier support (Majin Buu for example is my point in DBFZ with Bardock at mid). There’s also the slight advantage online of opponents being unfamiliar with your character. So yeah, I don’t necessarily care that someone is top tier as much as I want diversity
unfamiliarity can be a huge advantage depending on the game
I feel that lol I hate mirrors so much.
I'll be perfectly honest... I avoid top tiers because:
1- Lower chance of receiving a Nerf Bomb
2- Less people know the matchup
3- OP chars don't let me improve my fundamentals
#2. Best damn reason.
Nothing is more satisfying than hearing "Yo tf was THAT!?" Over the mic when you pull some of the most janky low-tier tech that makes melee wavedashing look normal.
@@SwolTako No one expects the Spanish inquisi... I MEAN, the Baraka counterpick.
Def agree with this comment !
Well this is what happened to wagner main in uni . There is a lot of wagner in tournament to the point that everyone knows the matchup and no wagner main enter top 8 evo. And i heard in uniclr she got nerf and no wagner main like the changes
3 isn‘t true though. It‘s on you if you don‘t improve fundamentals. Don‘t get me wrong, I know what you‘re trying to say. But that isn‘t a problem of a char being op, it‘s just you having played that char for so long, you‘ll plateau eventually. Switching characters helps a lot. 1st you‘ll know this other character better and 2nd you‘ll have to use different strategies, you‘ll see different interactions etc. and you can take those things back to your main, regardless if he was op or not, you learned something you wouldn‘t have learned with your main because you used a different char. That‘s my opinion though.
I suffered through months of Kotal Kahn barely being functional, so I earned the right to play a cheap ass Dark Souls boss
Is Kotal good now? I've been away from MK11 for too long
@@adams3627 Kotal is lowkey busted now
StylesClashFGC I wonder how he got busted so quickly lmao. I don’t remember him getting buffs. I also suffered through months of playing skarlet but only because I liked the character, now I play sindel XD.
He was fixed when customs came out
You see, Sajam, this is why I only pick characters from S-/A+. Strong enough to win, bad enough to not attract attention.
Reaping all the benefits without the downsides.
Believe me brother, if people want to complain they'll find something wrong.
People can complain about mid or low tier characters if they don't like to deal with particular moves.
@@andriy_tato
Yeah, comments like,
"Wow, this character sucks, but that one option is dumb."
Thanks doc
"you want to win? then pick the top tier"
Don't tell them that...cause when I beat them with a low tier character, they're gonna flip out and lose their mind "But I was told that if I pick top tier I would win!?" Then now you got some sore ass loser throwing a fit and his controller.
Pizzahighfive I play top tier and when I lose to a low tier I’m just kinda impressed 🤷🏼♂️
I'm just here to appreciate you using an altered Falke quote
@@Rakios26 🤨 it's an old FGC quote
There is one thing that many people hate, and that's mirror match. Now if you're playing top tier character, expect to have mirror match most of the time.
I've actually never understood this. Why do people hate mirror matches?
@@cursinsquirl It's a mental thing. Let's assume the mirror match is with your main. This tests your knowledge with your main and how you perform against someone with, assumedly, as much or more knowledge of your character. I remember someone commenting on a video with this same idea, I think. Then again, this is looking at it from an online perspective
@@cursinsquirl It's the same reason why games have many different characters. People want variety.
I love playing mirror matches! I either get to learn something about my character or teach the opponent something new, sometimes both.
@@cinetic_ Same here. Especially if its with people I'm either learning or people I have fun playing with
I wouldn't say I feel bad, just that I sometimes I find the top tier option less interesting; it depends. Sometimes the strongest option is also the easiest option and it's boring af to play. Like cubelock in Hearthstone.
Some other times if that character is that "bullshit" they are just tainted in my mind and I don't want to touch them, they disgust me. That being said, I have no problem with other people playing them and will never criticize fellow players for their choice of character. That I cannot relate with.
And other times, wins are just more satisfying knowing it is an uphill battle. If you are playing for fun it's okay to set what makes it fun for you.
I haven't watched the video at this point btw.
edit: If I love the character on sight though, I don't care much about the tier (my second might just be top tier tho).
Exactly, I enjoy playing mid tiers because there's more bad matchups which challenges you more. Like you can't just throw out any move and win you have to actually push your limits.
I'm the same way, I like having many tools but not if I feel they just win me games or something. It's much more satisfying to win feeling that I earned it. If a character is top tier but difficult to play, I enjoy them, tho.
That, and playing an unpopular character feels better to me. Like another person said, I wouldn't wanna be another Ryu in a sea of Ryu's.
If everyone is playing the S-tier character for your game, then if you play that character, then you're playing the same character as everyone else, and that's boring. It's not about wanting your character to be bad, it's wanting to be able to express your particular style of play without feeling like a copycat or crowd-follower.
I think this is it. When you play the top tier characters it just kinda feels like you're following a crowd or copying someone. Even though it's not this way it FEELS like you cant be unique while playing the most mainstream characters.
Preach
So its about being a hipster, these arguments are so silly. No one in basketball cares about using the same strategy, no one in league cares about using the meta, no one in overwatch league compares about the meta. Just play the people you want and stop having excuses.
Then just advance the meta for that character. Discover a new tech or come up with your own combo. Ontop of that you can bring your playstyle to that character so they play differently.
CursinSquirrel sometimes people have suggestions or style choices that really do work for everyone though.
The easy answer should be: Play who you like, you will have more succes than picking the character based on strenght.
Started Granblue with Katalina, had no fun with her, then went to Metera and have fun since then.
People shouldn't care about their character strenght, just pick what you enjoy the most, will get you the furthest.
This is great unless your favorite character is so top tier they're broken. I don't play Guilty Gear because my favorite characters are Justice and Robo-Ky. Justice is just outright BANNED due to being a broken boss character, and Robo-Ky was so overpowered that winning with him means nothing. "Of course you won, you play Robo-Ky" "You LOST?! How do you LOSE with Robo-Ky!". There's no satisfaction. You can't explain that you play these characters because you love them, nah you're only playing them because they're top tier.
@@GELTONZ The moment you care about this, you lose.
As I started to play Melty, I picked a character who is literal braindead easy and Top Tier at the same time, being ridicoulis at basically everything.
Why? Well I liked her, why should I care how good she is in the end? I like the damn character.
Play the damn character you like, it is that simple.
If you care about satisfaction in winning, then you didn't want to play what you like to begin with.
I agree, but I think this is why I get a bit frustrated when I see people talking about who's the top tier in a manner to pick them up because they're strong.
That's quite noticeable with streamers for example, somehow a lot of them end up playing the top tier characters and switching to the new top tiers whenever there's a patch. I don't intend to criticize their fun but for me it makes me feel less connected to the community because I don't see the reasons I play the game in other people.
@@ciphercdr3349 who exactly is that character? Never bothered with tierlists. A pal and I played it every now and then and settled on crescent style kohaku and ciel respectively. They broken or nah?
@@velkielle7587 They're both in the same strenght Area as Aoko.
At the very worst best High Tiers, general strong Top Tier.
2B on launch. As for not wanting to be "That good" there's also the fear of the nerf hammer. Many of the tag Noel players I talk with don't want her to be top tier, because they know there's a good chance that she'll be buried again
Other guy: "Dude your character is so busted wtf"
Me: "I know :)"
I started avoiding playing characters I perceive as strong just because all my friends stopped playing fighting games with me, one of which even broke their controller
I really don't enjoy making people angry but I guess it just means I need more fighting game friends who take losses well instead of just not playing the characters I want to altogether
Your friend's problem isn't with your character so much as it is his temper. If he childishly broke his controller over a character, then that's on them to grow the fuck up.
Yeah unfortunately that's a problem you can't fix imo
Fighting games take a lot of humility to play for any length of time, because there's no one to blame but yourself
And most people can't hack that
But tiliting people when playing fgs is the best bit :]
You Need New Friends
That's really the crux of it. I only ever had one fighting game group who saw losing as the way to improve, and surprise surprise they were the most fun people to play with ever. We were constantly improving, no one got salty, we all laughed about how broken some options were and how weak others were, and kept hitting rematch. It was a blast.
Everyone else I've played with gets down on themselves for losing or tilted after getting bopped for more than 3 games straight. Most of my friends don't play fighting games as much as they talk about wanting to play fighting games :\
I feel like people are going to complain no matter who you use so just play who you want. You're playing for your enjoyment, not theirs.
I played Blanka in SF4 who everyone agreed was bad and i've literally never got more hatemail/annoyed comments. I hit a guy with 11 st.MP's in one round in tournament and he told me I was winning due to gimmicks.
My process for picking a character:
1) Who looks cool
2) Pick the cool character, does he/she feel good to play
Done. Sometimes I luck into good characters like A. Gohan and other times I end up maining Phoenix Wright. I admit that sometimes I want to play some characters that are cool (Beerus), but are missing tools that make me drop them if I’m playing seriously. Nothing wrong with that, just how it goes.
I’m same. I pick who looks cool and I like the feeling of. I love beerus and gogeta like crazy! I had to drop gogeta but I’ll never drop beerus
The first time I got halfway through my locals I played Leroy. I beat people WAY better than me and it felt empty. Unearned.
In rare cases there are characters that truly break the game. But they are few and far between. More often there are annoying/simply superior characters that can be dealt with if you have proper fundamentals. But even in those rare cases, why feel empty? They have the same choice you do to pick that character and be on an even playing field. This is in contrast to something like competitive sports: coaches, owners can't just choose to have their own Lebron James. Your team is better, it wins. There is no shame in it; it's competition.
My favorite extreme example is someone being pitted against a tiger. Are you going to care that you have a rifle that renders the animal's superior strength moot? No, you used your intelligence to win. It's smart to pick better characters. That is all there is to it.
@@PathBeyondTheDark because there is art and expression within competition. You can be driven purely by the desire to win, that's cool. But I enjoy the dance of the fight, the rhythm, the mind games, the GAME. In the end, for me, a game (Chess, Football, Boxing or Tekken) should be stimulating. It's about far more than just who wins in the end
What about the money.... did that feel real
@@ens0246 Fair. Neither side of this argument should be degrading the other, accept everyone plays for different reasons and move on. But often times you have one side belittling the other, especially if it impedes on their fun. But one thing you cannot do in competition is control how someone plays. That is their right.
@@PathBeyondTheDark Yeah. I used to do it too. Sometimes I might even catch myself still. It's a difficult habit to break. I think maybe it partly stems from the culture of trash talk too. I find a lot of people are in trash talk mode permanently and instead of it coming off as theatrics they just come across as dicks. Also it's harder to tell by just reading text because you don't have tone of voice. But then it's also been seen at tournaments with people screaming behind a competitor's ear lol.
I just like framing myself as the underdog. My enjoyment comes from the feeling of outplaying an opponent who's stronger on paper.
I like to play low tiers because i like finding diamonds in the rough. I like to see a more diverse set playstyles, and that can only be done if we explore other options. Being special has an appeal as well..
FGC socialite syndrome. People who don't even put in work to learn top tiers(much less learn to fight them) will always complain about top tiers.
For me, I tend to play lower tier characters partially because the archetypes I gravitate towards (grapplers, slow/heavy hitters) usually aren't high tier. However, I honestly don't usually like playing top tier characters because I prefer to play from a state of perceived disadvantage. I think winning feels better when I feel like I've outplayed you despite my opponents' inherent advantage. For me, playing low tier is not necessarily a shield against loss, but rather a badge of pride upon victory. Similarly, I don't like playing top-tier characters because I dislike feeling like I won because of overwhelming advantage on a matchup level. I'll play characters who are high in the tierlist, but I don't like playing characters that considered the best.
Of course, playstyle and aesthetic also matter a lot to me. At the end of the day I will only ever main a character if I truly like them/like playing them. Furthermore, I will not discredit somebody else for playing a high-tier.
Example- when I started playing Unist, I first played Enkidu because I thought he was the coolest member of the cast. I then also started playing Wagner as a secondary because she's also pretty cool. However, as I started to get better/watch more high level play, I realized just how good Wagner was, and just how bad Enkidu was. I dropped Wagner because I didn't want to play somebody who was considered a 'problem' character. After sticking with Enkidu a bit, I figured that it would be more worthwhile to pick up somebody else if I wanted to seriously get better. So, I searched for a bit before deciding on Gordeau, who both fits my playstyle/I think is cool, but is also pretty high tier.
Now that Uniclr is out, I might switch back to Enkidu, but at the same time I don't know if I want to play him if he's really that good. Plus, I do really like gordeau...
Does that make sense? Am I a pansy who's too chicken to pick a high tier? I dunno. At the end of the day, I play characters that I feel the best playing.
To answer this it isn't so much a matter of being top tier it's being boring. And a lot of the time that comes from degeneracy not strength in itself.
A good example of this was Leroy I didn't play him when he first came out cause he had a bunch of overtuned, brain dead moves.
Not only that but everyone was playing him cause he was OP and that makes the character meta stale very quickly. It just wasn't fun.
The reason I try not to play a top tier is that I don't want there to be any excuse to say that I didn't beat an opponent. I won because I outplayed my opponent, not because my character is inherently better. The distinction for me is very important.
Every character will have some kind of advantage over each other, Scrubs will find every other excuse, you shouldn't care about said scrubs excuses for losing. Unless you guys are mirror matching, things are inherently unbalanced.
Here’s how it is at least for me. I don’t really get satisfaction from winning easily. I get way more hype and satisfaction if I have to work hard to survive in a hard matchup, and make really clutch reads that lead to victory. That sort of hype moment is what I like about fighting games. If I can win without much effort, that sense of surmounting a difficult obstacle just isn’t there. Winning is nice, but I’m not one of those people who either wins and has a good time, or loses and has a bad time. Its more how I get to the win that matters, and doing that with characters that are easy to win with just, isn’t as fun. Also, if none of the top tiers have a play style that I like, then I won’t play them. Period.
for me, i like the idea of being that guy that's really good with this character that's perceived as bad, rather than being just another rashid main that wins because the character is cheap. i know it's not really the case because you still have to play rashid well (rashid just being an example here obviously).
there's also the idea that other people get to play against characters they might not get to see much instead of just constantly playing against ryus, getting to change it up a bit.
i think it just mostly comes down to standing out from the crowd, being a snowflake, whatever you wanna call it, and the feeling of knowing you won because you're personally skilled rather than just because your character has cheap moves you can abuse.
I think most people dont want to constantly get flamed for being carried by a character as to being recognized for personal skill. The thing is, the same is true on the opposite spectrum, "I didnt even know the character existed! You won coz ive never played the MU." IMO think its easier to blame character choice as to recognize personal skill.
I generally gravitate to characters with high execution and cool combos. Like, in gbvs I played katalina for a bit cause she was strong and simple, but once I labbed Narmaya, I stuck with her cause of her combos and mixups, even though I know kat is stronger. There's a part of me that knows I won't put in the same effort in learning if I get bored playing a character.
I'm shameless when it comes to tiers btw. Like, I picked zato-1 in xrd cause he was cheap as fuck but needed dedication to learn how to play him. I still play him after the rev2 nerfs, not out of pride, but simply for not having practiced other characters to play instead.
No one rembers the 567:st ryu player but people remeber the one Gen player in sf4 who showed of the gen loop in a tournament for the first time and won the whole thing.
I think there's a distinction between picking top tier and picking a broken character. While all broken characters are top tier, not all top tier characters are broken.
When a character is weak, there's a higher likelihood that the character is used less, and sometimes I like picking an underrepresented character. Also it feels good knowing that other people find your character difficult to use. I know that doesn't apply to all mid/low tiers but still. I don't find anything wrong with picking a top tier, but I understand the mentality of "feeling bad" to the point where it no longer feels fun or deserved. I mean that mentality is a personal issue, but I can respect it.
It can also give you an advantage since people probably won't know how to counter an underused character as much as they will a character they run into every other match.
I've been playing Lancelot since the beta and really enjoy him. However my favorite character is Zeta but, honestly, I'm not touching her untill she gets some buffs, I do not have nearly as much fun playing her as I do playing Lancelot right now.
Same after swapping to kat. heres hoping zeta gets buffs
Zeta doesnt need buffs wtf she’s good as hell & got one of the best projectiles online, all her air moves are plus & shes a god in the corner
If you see the same combos over and over and have GREAT frame data, better options, safe options, mix ups, set ups, OFC it's the character. On paper it's called having an ADVANTAGE(s). Also there's like a universal if not majority mindset of wanting for an underdog player using a low tier character to win against a top tier character. The point of nerfing and buffing is to balance everything as much as possible without taking the uniqueness of every character.
I think a lot of people dont want get to shit for playing a character they love so some people will hover around good characters or hype characters to avoid getting shit.
I wanted to play Cammy after she got nerfed because so many of her supposed fans abandoned her and I kinda felt bad for her. Stupid, I know
Its ayt
I was told jin and ragna are easy to lern when my friends introduced me to blazblue. I saw noel and asked "what about her?" And they all said shes actually a bad character. I felt bad, and now i guess i still play noel.
Sanjam doesnt understand the playing to lose mindset. 😎
One time I refused to pick the top tier was in the original console release of UNIB. I was interested in Gordeau, but I only play with people much more casual than me. I was afraid I'd burn them out super hard with that broken character.
There is a large range of factors in this, You have strong as in busted characters, boring to play, boring to fight. And then you have strong characters because of how many tools and abilities they have to fight and play with/against.
It seems like I'm in the minority here. I like playing characters that are hard *because* they are hard. I get close to zero satisfaction when I win with an easy/cheap top tier (top tiers are almost always easy/cheap) because I know I didn't have to work hard to get good at playing that character. It feels like a cheap victory. I don't care what excuses the scrubs come up with to explain why they lost. I just want my victories to feel satisfying. That's why I main Vatista in UNICLR and Kazuya in Tekken 7.
I pick characters based upon how much I like their super tbh. That legit carries the most weight for me.
That said I don't like playing characters that are super strong because if they are legitimately unbalanced it feels like cheating.
Also, it's harder to develop good fundamentals on a character with lots of options and "cheap" abilities. The character can cover your weaknesses in a way that could potentially inhibit your growth as a player.
@@wowiwhwbw Spot on my man. I don't want holes in my game cause my character it strong. I want to win by outplaying my opponent. Having really strong options works against that somewhat.
i dunno i started playing Kazuya recently and i really enjoy it. He has soooo many options that King just didn’t really have and i vibe with him more than Hwo who i was maining before.
@@jwm1444 The character vibe is the more important part imo. King is really strong though. Mishima options are hella good but King is no lower than A tier.
SomeBlackDude oh yeah, i got to brawler pretty quick with King and i usually don’t not go on rolls with chars like i did with King so i’m not trying to downplay, but Kaz covered the one hole King’s game had, good low mixes
@@jwm1444 Kaz gets the vortex off the hellsweep too. It tracks this patch also my G.
Just play whoever you find the most fun and fits your play style the best.
Your friends might complain a bit, but they’re getting matchup experience against a top tier, so it’s win-win.
Now if you feel a top tier character is carrying you and you want to develop a more well-rounded skill set, then switching characters might be an option.
But don’t just play a character because they’re low tier, then complain about others playing high/top tiers
Here's how I choose: Male character: if hes legitimately a cool character with good combos and a bit of depth.
Females: If I want them to beat me up. That's why I main Android 18 in Fighterz, Jacqui Briggs in MK and Vanessa from KOF.
Only time this mentality makes sense is when a character is completely broken. Like if a character/weapon etc is so good that it's universally banned or has far more unfair advantages than others with little to no trade off then I could see not wanting to add the already likely large pool of people using them. Essentially if it reduces the game to "if you don't pick X then you're playing handicapped" then I could see that mentality being valid. No one wants to play a game where only 1 or 2 characters are valid and if you play someone else you may as well be playing at 50% hp.
I realize in fighting games that scenario almost never happens but in other genres it can be pretty prevalent and really can either ruin or severally reduce the enjoyment of the game for all players.
I think a good example of this is Petshop from JBA: Heritage for the Future. That character has the smallest hitbox (only rivaled by stand-off iggy), and is the only character that can fly. Combined with super powerful moves, he is the only char in the game that most people avoid playing. Tekken 7's Leroy (inital release) was also a good example of this, he was just unparalleled in quality of his moves, he just had no weakness.
I feel the whole discussion is moot when you come to the realization that most of the people complaining about losing and such will always complain because they are incapable of accepting their own failure.
Still, I'm in the camp that I may be unwilling to pick a character if I know it's the best of the best, but only if I don't generally like the character. For example since vanilla DBFZ I have mained Cell because he was so fun to play as and is my favorite villain. I didn't care he was top tier, I just had fun. When Goku GT dropped I didn't even want to try him out because I knew how busted he was, but at the same time I don't really care much about Goku GT.
When Granblue came out I thought of playing Zeta just based on looks. Since I didn't get the game until it came to PC, Narmaya was already out so I ended up maining her (it started based on looks, but the gameplay clicked as well). If Narmaya wasn't a thing I think I would be toughing it out with Zeta.
Great video! But for me there is 1 idea you are missing.
I play ice climbers in melee, considered to be around 8th-11th best in the game. Now even if ice climbers magically became top tier or even the best character in the game, I would still play them, but I wouldn't play a character like Sheik or Puff if they were the best. Why?
Because IC's (perhaps more than any other character in the game) have the ability to majorly disrespect and humiliate the opponent.
They have a controversial infinite which some tournaments are banning. This infinite is so powerful, that banning it instantly drops them to 12th-15th. In order for them to remain even remotely viable, a lot of insane combos with extremely high execution barriers need to be learnt. I go to a local tournament which doesn't ban the infinite, but I choose to not use it anyway because if I win, my opponent will be humiliated and extra salty. There is nothing he can complain about now. Now I know the premise of your video is to not care about what other people think and to ignore the complainers, but it doesn't address the satisfaction attained from disrespecting the opponent. Maybe I'm a psychopath but that's what brings me true enjoyment in playing; not winning with my favorite character, but winning with my favorite character and breaking my opponents soul.
For me, because it feels more rewarding beating something "top tier" with something people thought was garbage/meh
When I do pick low tier characters, this is the reason. If someone beats me, then I fucked up and they played better than me. Simple as that. It's not about having a shield to OS complaints. It's about picking someone I like and proving the tier lists wrong! aMSa single-handedly bumped Yoshi up the tier lists in Melee back when everyone thought the character was trash and I think that's really cool.
there are 2 things to this that kind of thinking that comes to mind when people mention this.
if i happen to pick a strong character, i might not now how to access what makes that character strong so it kind of doesn't matter anyways.
but if i don't want to be accused of winning by just picking the right character i can feel safe picking a weak character because i'll know i've beat the opponent on my own merits.
there's also that sweet victory if you know you had the cards stacked against you that those wins feels extra special because of it.
it's kind of like beating a boss that's been whooping you for a long time and you finally succeed.
but in general i don't really look at tier list for what characters i should play, it's more so a curious of what the community thinks and feels about certain characters.
i base my character choices more off of the abilities and the appearance of a character more so than anything else.
because if i don't enjoy the character i can't really enjoy the game personally.
I like playing fighting game characters that feel like they are an extension of my own skill and my own design preferences. If I win with a top tier, I will feel its because of the character, not my own ability. That's why I'm attracted to upper B tier and lower A tier characters.
I mostly play based on aesthetics, mechanics and cool factor. I really like #21's absorb mechanic, and she's hot, so i tried different teams with her. Nothing really clicked until Broly and Cooler entered the stage, which had really satisfying impact int heir moves, and they looked sick! So was born my 1st main team, Broly/21/cooler. Christened it the "Double ham sandwhich".
Now, i roll with DBS Broly/21/Brolly, tentatively called "The double broccoli Burger".
This video made me think of the whole situation with H-box and Jigglypuff. So much complaining about the strength of the character and the way the pace of the game was altered. Very little credit for the player for being able to do that well in high stakes fights.
Edit: or at least, that's the impression I got after 10 minutes of Internet research.
I don't like playing top tiers because when i win with a top tier i feel like the character won me the match and not my own skill
For me personally, It just feels a little bit more satisfying to win characters that are not considered "strong". It
kinda forces me play smarter because their options suck.
I don't really mind picking a top or low tier, it just always happen that the character I like the most ends up being low tier.
Also the reason I would avoid playing a top tier is because I don't really wanna play the character that everyone else is using.
But at the end of the day, I just pick the character that I think I like the most in looks or gameplay, regardless of tier.
The only things that matter to me when picking characters are:
1. Do I have fun playing them?
2. Are they a cute girl?
If they meet either criteria I'll play them.
It comes down to memories of beating your friends who don't care about the game as much as you do who no longer wanted to play with you because you trounced them.
You play someone your not as good with, your friends wins a few games (or comes close) and you get to keep playing.
My personal opinion is the most important thing is to just have fun with the character your playing wheteher it's top tier or low tier , I like low tiers because I think they are the most fun to play, For example Mk11 Kollector day 1.
Now do you need to feel bad for playing top tier? I would say it depends on how you feel , Do you think your winning when you shouldn't? Do you think that they look strong but boring to play? It depends on how you feel. I don't like playing top tiers because I like working for the win instead of just take it easily. But it's not bad to have a pocket top tier in case of emergency.
When it's top tier vs top tier, which it is more and more as you climb ranked, you feel like you earned it. And when you beat a low tier main, do you feel bad? No, if they complain, you just tell them to come at you with an S-tier then
@@LegendaryO34 that's why I said It's not bad to have a pocket top tier and nice explanation
@@omrizubary thanks. And yeah, if you actually lose to their pocket top tier, you really gotta hold that, because usually when someone does that they only perform worse with their pocket.
@@LegendaryO34 exactly
you still have a bad mindeset imo. No matter who you play you have to work for the win. Sure you might get a couple shutouts but, the idea that playing a top tier means you don't have to work for it is pretty rude to people who invested time to get good and understand that playing a top tier is the best way to win at higher levels.
I've yet to find a character in a FG that completely fits my preferences.
@New Skin Long story.
I can see one reason to avoid picking top tier being that if they have one option that's overcentralizing that makes them OP, it usually translates into an unidimentional and brain dead gameplan.
However, if they're OP because their entire kit is great, ppl have noooo reason to bitch around.
bayonetta tho
So Leroy was a good character to release and deserved to have an neutral mid CH launcher, a homing hellsweep, a orbital that is -3 on block, safe long range homing attacks, the best parry, a d/f+1 with extensions that is -1 on block, spectacular combo damage, and be easy to play?
I usually mistakenly find myself playing low tiers so when I play top tiers, idk what to do with myself lol
Bro just play who you like I DNT pick a character precised on strength I pick em based on mechanics like zeta
I main Zeta cause her ultimate makes her hotter ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@@awalkingfurret4207 exactly
I love functions
top 10 anime accounts Come on bro...
With me it just so happens that every character I like ends up sucking hardcore...in literally EVERY FG I play
WIth me, I don't want to pick top tier's even if I like the character's design/playstyle because nowadays you always have the paranoia that the dev's will over correct and nerf them into the ground. Then if the nerf is too hard you have to relearn a whole new character.
I think my issue is not whether or not a character is top tier, but how popular that character is. I'm not sure where it stems from, but there's a small sense of pride that comes from using a character you don't see very often.
There's also the idea of being the person that shows people the strengths of a character that they believe in. To play an established top tier is one thing, but to be the one to show a character's potential is another.
While I don’t like the idea of playing a weak character, the thought of playing a character that seems overwhelmingly strong does bring me a small worry that if I can’t win with them, what does that say about me? Etc. Even with an A-tier I suppose the OS still exists.
In a lot of games the top tiers are broken. Do I want my character to be as strong as Leroy? Hell no.
Leroy in Tekken 7 is a strong argument for this mindset. I didn't pick nor even buy Leroy due to his balance. He was just way too good and it's not interesting for me to see the same character all the time. Instead of contributing to the bloat of Leroys EVERYWHERE I absolutely refused to buy him. I play Asuka and I'm fine at mid-tier, although with all the Mishima buffs I do wish I had a couple more tools to open people up.
And then on top of that Leroy isn't even fun. There's not much that's interesting or unique about him, he just has every tool and the numbers on the frame data are busted. Waste if a cool design
Balleet To me it was more or less that it was a waste to learn how to play him because he was obviously going to get nerfed. So it didn’t make sense to establish a playstyle which may not be viable long term.
@@ZachHenke Another good point!
It doesn’t matter how good a character is or how strong their tools are if the person that’s playing with them doesn’t know how to utilize them effectively
And to add onto your point at 2:17, if you lose while playing a strong character - then people will say you just suck.
I think a big part of it is also trying to prove other people wrong, picking someone percieved to be low tier and showing everyone that they can punch up
4:22 - "Maybe it's the repetition of fighting a popular character"
Based on my professional experience working on game balance I would say that the ammount of complaints about a certain character being overpowered corelates much more with pick rate than win rate.
I personally love playing low tiers, not for the OS, if I lose I lose. I like seeing if there's anything untapped. I don't mind losing if I'm playing low tiers at all.
for me it isn't about feeling bad. I just hate following the crowd.
I get the mindset, but it should be noted that things aren't bad because they're popular. For me in fighting games, when choosing who I want to play, I pretend what if I lived in a white void with no outside influence. Who would I play? That's how I pick my characters.
@@bluegrave4376 Things ARE bad when they are too popular. Two of the main selling points of FGs is variety and self-expression. If everyone just wants to win and they all play the same broken shit with the same broken tactics it absolutely hurts the community. People start to feel like they can't even play their favorite character or just get sick of the same matchup over and over.
@@balleet210 That wasn't my point though. I meant that you should play whatever character you want because you like the character. For example, in dragonball, I play bardock not necessarily because he's good, but because he's one of my favorite characters in the series. I also play android 21, probably one of the less popular characters because I enjoyed the character from the story and like the design. That fact that one's popular and one's not is not a factor.
It always feels cooler to develop a character whole cloth opposed to watching a tutorial.
Though go1 is probably gonna come up with a better game plan than you. :/
I'm with you. I hate it when my character becomes popular.
I have a different idea. I think there's this idea in "the journey" that if you win with a weak character you truly "earned" that win. If you won with a strong character, that win was not truly "earned". If you can make a weak character successful, it's because you put in the time and effort, whereas if you use a strong character obviously you put in a quarter of the time and only care about winning not about getting better and enjoying the game. This is dumb, but I could see this as the mind set in some folk. I say pick whom you want, enjoy your wins, and learn from your loses. Every match is a new opportunity unto itself to grow.
I usually just pick characters that visually appeal to me lol. Bonus points for crowd favorites, I love riling people up. That first time you get a crowd going is instantly addicting. I can enjoy most playstyles but for whatever reason the characters I think look good usually end up being the high risk high reward read based ones.
Some people also just genuinely enjoy overcoming the challenge of a bad character or bad matchups.
I know it’s an old video but a big concern for me personally when it comes to picking a top tier is getting carried - being up there in high ranks with bad fundamentals can feel quite bad
ive fought against this mindset since i really got into fighting games and have developed the mindset that if i lose, no matter how strong the character, no matter how bad the matchup, if i lose, its my fault and i just have to find the workaround for whoever im using. i am aware that there are some really bad matchups but im just stubborn about my own beliefs and i can accept a brutal loss knowing its my fault and could be better.
and also props to whoever bodies me of course lol
The big thing is that in a lot of games, top top tier placement sometimes means that the character has options that are so comprehensively powerful that they end up watering down your decision-making when you play them, so they become LESS fun, not more.
A practical recent example that comes to mind is Foxof42's tweets about Vatista in UNICLR:
twitter.com/foxof42/status/1229085524343820289
twitter.com/foxof42/status/1239379945715097600
Presumably, a big part of the appeal of the character for him was flexibility, in combo routing (knockdown vs damage, for example) and in overall gameplay (compensating for weaknesses and adjusting for tough matchups). But now (or at least at the time of writing), "There's no area where this character lacks. She absolutely has it all, and her worst MUs have only become easier."
I think that this is a perfectly understandable reason to not be too happy about your main getting big buffs.
I do kinda guilt myself into feeling like I'm ruining the game if I start using someone or thing thats considered "OP". I remember getting into Crosstag and feeling like a dirtbag for picking up Ruby.
That's a healthy way to look at the game though. I can't stand the thoughtless "omg nothing is OP who cares about the game being fun for anyone win win win" mentality, and how obnoxiously it's pushed as the default.
At the end of the day both players/teams are ultimately playing games for fun and taking such a dismissive view of interacting with other people is just cunty
To be fair I would just blame season 1 bbtag just generally being awful balance wise with Rwby just a symptom of the problem not the cause.
The only reason I'd avoid playing a top tier character is that modern patching means they'll get nerfed just for being good, even if they're about right for the game's overall power level.
But apart from that? Hell yes. Having tools is fun, I just like having better game pieces than the opponent (so long as the match doesn't turn into a farce, too much advantage is too much). It's a very nice feeling to know that if something is frustrating, my character likely has the tools to deal with it, and I just have to learn to use them. With a low tier character that's not necessarily the case. It's nice to know my losses are by and large my fault, it prevents the buildup of a toxic mindset where you give yourself excuses. Lose with a top tier, the problem is between chair and controller.
Pre nerf Leroy from tekken 7 is a perfect example. He was so good that if you had half a brain it was basically a guaranteed win. In tournaments he was used specifically because he was better than the rest of the cast not because he looked cool
I don't think playing a strong character is something to be ashamed of. But things like using their tools to scrap out wins online is less respectable. As long as you play them cleanly and not as a crutch I would be okay with it. But any character I play MUST have a command throw.
I recently had this with Xrd for like 10 mins when my friend ,and the entire community from what I can see, said Elphelt was a lame top tier and super easy. I dont find her easy, but I do find her lame, and thats exactly what makes her so fun. throwing exploding fruit at people on wake up and running up with my shotgun is really cool. Shes also really cute
Thank you for this video, I've been struggling with this for years. I always hoped my favorites weren't top tier bc I've been harassed in the past (called a tier whore etc) and had my worth as a player automatic devalued when they found out who I played.
I've been trying to get over that in the past year with a whole idgaf attitude and it's working p well actually. I never had the concern so I could blame my character, I just wanted to avoid being hated on. My main issue is that I usually play characters I already love and I don't like when people assume I play a character just bc they're good bc that's usually not the case. Anyway thanks again sajam. :)
This is something I need to work on. In BBTAG I get sick of people running away from my waldstein (I lost in a local due to that), but I just don't understand why I never wanted to switch. Adachi would shut down a lot of that.
I don't want to play top tier characters, because:
A) everyone plays them, and I'm not a boring bitch
B) nobody can reasonably question my wins when I'm fighting against people who have objectively better characters
I don't wanna get carried by a character. I want someone with flaws that I have to play around but is still viable.
I played some DBFZ for the first time at a friend's house and the first character that clicked with me was Trunks, so I was was like "I'm making my team around this boy, I'm gonna main him." A little while after I bought the game and started practicing my team, then season 3 patch dropped and everybody is saying that Trunks is hella good now and I couldn't be happier. The character I feel more comfortable playing is also a strong character? That's a win/win.
0:30 what if you dont want to play a character bc they'll make everyone even top players think you're a pervert
IMO there is no better feeling than beating top tier with low tier. It just more fun.
So I understand this mindset pretty well and it has lost me a handful of locals. I used to play in alot of local tournaments for various games and I would typically avoid any strategy or tool that I decided was too unbalanced.
An easy example was Halo 2 1v1s, I would strategically time and control certain power weapons like rockets or swords just to throw them off the map, depending on the map I would also take overshields and grenade myself back to normal shields and if the TO was dumb enough to allow the banshee on Ascent I would go far out of my way to either blow it up or fly it off the map. Instead of picking them up and running train against my opponent who spawns with only an SMG, I was baiting the power spawns for favorable engagements and refusing to snowball my advantage by picking them up after winning a fight over them. Instead I would run around with a battle rifle and sniper when I had control, and occasionally pick up a shotgun to counter if my opponent picked up a sword. I thought it was good sportsmanship to handicap myself where I disagreed with the ruleset.
But honestly I could've proved my point way better by abusing everything I thought was unfair and if I won because of that I could more easily explain to the organizers why I think they should change their rules for the format to make it more fair and competitive in the future.
I wouldn't recommend intentionally handicapping yourself. The misplaced sense of pride isn't worth it.
An aspect I don't think a lot of people consider is helping push the meta for underdeveloped characters. Most of the times Top tiers have a lot of "resources" and experience going on for them, while lower/mid tier characters have the "still kinda new or unknown" appeal. This is more evident for older games that don't experience patches, or gets patched very rarely, like Third Strike, Melee, and maybe Skullgirls.
i’m saying this on a three year old video but i often would pick “low tier” stuff across all genres of games purely because i never wanted anyone to be able to say i only beat them because of what character/build/deck i was using. turns out when you win with low tiers people will still message you about how u only won because ur build is a gimmick, “why are you running that garbage card (that beat them)”, etc. etc.
I mained Nago for the first year in strive. I couldn’t help but feel like my progress was stunted because I could get away with things that the rest of the cast couldn’t. My goal was never to just win but to improve. Since switching to ky until testament came out I have improved significantly. Initially after switching I dropped several floors and quickly confirmed my previous “concerns” Nago was hard carrying me. I even switched back to Nago briefly and climbed right back up to celestial challenges. All that to say I think some people just don’t want to feel like their accomplishments are unearned.