Learning new characters.

[NeoTrinity]

This might be a TLDR so there is my warning.

So at the moment I find myself in an annoying predicament.  I currently run King/Leona/Elisabeth on my main squad.  I consider myself fairly advanced, if not upper intermediate at the game and I hold my own.  I've won a tournament in my area and have had the opportunity to have casuals with some top players so I can safely say I know how to play the game.

I don't mean to brag I just wanted to establish my standing with the game as to avoid any misunderstanding about me being a new player and receiving advice amongst that assumption.  Now onto my problem.

I have recently decided to branch out and learn new characters.  I feel that you have to learn how to play other characters in order to understand them, the game, and possible matchups against them.  I love my main team but it does get boring only playing them in extended casuals.  So, I decided to learn others with the hope of getting some to the level of my main team, adding to my arsenal, and generally getting better at the game.  Sadly this has not happened.

Now my main team got to where they are after a long period of time(Like 3 months): I had the learn the game, learn them, etc.  But for some reason when I want to go to other characters, I cannot function.  For example, the first ones I picked up were K', Iori, and Robert.  I learned their combos and what to do but when I took them to sets I got ran over.  Even after getting matches in with them I still got bodied.  I soon lost hope and went back to my main squad. 

Same thing happened when I picked up Ex Kyo, Iori, and Saiki.  Once again I learned them and felt good using them but I can't seem to make them work.  Once I get put on defense I just feel helpless, in contrast to my main team where I have an idea what to know at all time.   In some sets I will just get ran over to the point where I act like I don't know how to play the game, i.e Random Dps, Lot's of Jump-Ins, and just overall dumb decisions.  And I feel like even though I am learning a new character, this is detrimental to me.

On a nicer note, however, I recently picked up Mature and I seem be doing better with her.  I can actually function in matches with her and seem to be doing better.  I'd say she's the closest in skill to my mains.  The thing is, I've done the exact same thing with her I've done with the others(except maybe I actually like the character a lot more).  So I don't understand how I'm doing better with her when I probably put more work into K' and get stomped out. 

It's dawned on me as I wrote this that maybe I need to simply stick through them and keep playing them till they get on par with my main squad.  The thing is, now that I know the game infinitely better than I knew it back when I first started(this is my first kof btw), I feel that the leveling up process should not be so difficult.  So that leads me to believe that there is something I'm doing wrong.  Maybe I should just play with characters I feel comfortable with because honestly I wanted to learn the likes of Iori/Beni/Kyo, etc just becuase they were really good.  And the moment might arise in a tournament where my characters just could not handle, say a Mr. Karate, and I could call upon Top Teirs to make it a little easier.

To wrap it up, I would just like to ask what it is that ya'll do when you want to learn new characters?  What are some practices you employ?  How do you gauge their progress and if they are not up to standards how do you remedy the situation?

Also do you think it's okay to have pocket top teirs/characters to use in certain matchups?  Should you just play characters you're ultimately comfortable with?


SN:  Sorry for the long post and if it seems jumbled, I just sorta wrote as I thought it up.

[Tikok]

Also do you think it's okay to have pocket top teirs/characters to use in certain matchups?  Should you just play characters you're ultimately comfortable with?

It definitely is okay to have pocket characters (top tier or not) in case someone in your main team doesn't work well.
But if you do have a pocket top tier, you have to make sure you're good with that character. Playing a top tier doesn't mean you'll instantly do better, especially since in the end, all the KoF tier lists we have are nothing but speculation.

[solidshark]

Though I haven't quite done it myself, any character brought to a human character should usually be as good as your best charcter in some way, unless you're experimenting or something.

I think it best to start off every character with move properties (normals, specials, EX, supers, etc.), meterless combos, BnBs, DC combos, and then HD combos.

And definitely play characters you're comfortable with, cause just like tier-determinations, it's a matter of playstyle. If you're good with Chin, don't drop him just because someone else isn't good with him and therefore gave him a C rank or something.

[LazieFreddy]

What the other says, other than learning the normals, combos, and setups, I usually turn on CPU in training mode and practicing moving around, hit confirms on a moving target and get comfortable with the character first.  Then I will bring it out for casual play and try to incorporate mixups in the gameplay.

[chessmaster]

So how many characters should I learn if I'm just starting the game. I got the game last week and have only done a few trials and part of the tutorial. I ultimately want to learn 6-8 characters eventually. Is this too many?

[desmond_kof]

Start with one first, then work more in later. Be sure to understand the game system and flow. Also get your hops and movement down first, and take your time learning the combo cancel timing.

[Sharnt]

Isn't that normal you have to redo all the work you've done with your others chars?

Seems quite natural to me.

I tried Hwa, good to nothing except being bodied.

But with other chars such as Karate, Kula, Shen, else if I'm bad with those I can still steal some matches at lower lvl player because I'ml sticking to basics and don't try to do anything fancy with them since I don't master it yet. Just a very straightforward gameplan and punishing things for beginning then injecting bits of my playstyle from others characters and went on.

I'm still terrible with my second team though.
And not that good with the main >_>

[Kane317]

Since our QUOTE function is being stupid now, I can't be a little more precise so I'll just throw my two cents:

Like what most ppl said earlier, what you are going throw is completely normal.  Unless you're a super high level player like Reynald, Bala etc...it takes times to digest the new information--they can just do it at a very rapid rate.

Several personal guidelines I abide by when I learn new characters:


a) I only cycle in one new character per team.  So keep two of my original mains, and throw in someone.

b) I play the new character first.  This is so I get the maximum exposure with him and

c) I don't rely on them using meter.  It's natural to want to rely on their (Ex) specials, supers etc... but it makes you far too predictable.   Just think if you were using your King that way, what if you only did wake up Trap Shots and did Venom Strikes all day without testing out her s.B?  You get the point.  It's also I lot easier to add meter, to your already internalized BnB combos, than to work the other way around (Ok I learned his 1 drive 1 meter punish--what do I do when I have no meter?)

d) I force myself to use MOSTLY normals when I learn the character.

e) I learn the punishes (not all, like 1 or 2 TOPS).

f) I only learn two HDs (and this really goes for all my characters but that's just a preference): One fullscreen/anywhere, one corner.

[Coliflowerz]

Watch a lot of high level play of these characters! Watch carefully what they're doing. Try to implement stuff form your original team into your new team, and slowly have them mix. You get it eventually. Best rule is, don't give up. :P

[shinefist]

A big thing i noticed is when you learn new characters, you may know the moves for them but not at a fast enough pace to compete with an opponent who knows there character well. Also to learn new characters does take time to get them on par with the rest of your characters.

Also the best answer i can provide to this question is that if your learning a new character and your not to good with them, they can tell that your new to that character as they may have played someone who is good with that character. The only way out is to get better, much better with that character.

[meiji_99]

A big thing i noticed is when you learn new characters, try to understand the flow of your character work.
Don't worry about losing, because we gained much better experience & learning is from losing than winning the match, everytime you lost, eveluate. Repeat the process, i'm sure you will better in no time bro