if you loyal to a character you are stubborn, if you pick the strong characters only you are meta slave. - the ultimate os

But if i dont commit to my character then they wont come alive and get fast food with me

"Just pick a top tier" -Brian_F

Can't have a mental shackle if my character didn't show up! Miss you Necro please come back bby

Brian: “I have a topic I want to cover in a video.” Brian: “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

I think the problem is with lower level players is that they switch too early before they have even learned their character. People in the tournament scene yeah, totally different story

How dare you footsies with another character Brian, you and Rog were the OTP

I’ve never struggled with character loyalty. I’ve always played multiple characters because it’s just fun

Thanks for talking in spanish in the last sfv video, we are now satisfied

Went through this in SFIV with Rog. Stuck with him. Been there with the whole try someone new, and I found that I'd rather lose with my fav than win with someone else's.

Brian upload?? Pog

There's just something great about Balrog getting mad over his partner looking at Cammy's assets

Play whatever makes you feel like you are becoming better as a player but having fun in the process, be it high or low tier. This is a threat.

Aye I saw my “hello KZfaq” in there this is a good day.

I play Karin cuz I waited 20 years to play her again. She just happened to be strong.

The counter-pick meta is fun among a group of friends, plus learning matchups from other perspectives helps with picking apart your opponents decision making when you play against that character as your main

Character loyalists knew that they cannot change the game. So, instead of reflecting on themselves, they blamed the tierlist.

Complaints about character loyalty i think is actually a complaint about game balance. If top 8 ends up being mirrors, that's not good for anyone

Game loyalty is a mental shackle

The issue I always run into when trying to switch or learn new characters is my muscle memory from the previous character always haunts me. Thats one of the main things that holds me back alot from switching if I want to cause its always like "This doesnt work, I'm not X character" I've had so many instances of wanting to learn a new character but the muscle memory from my previous character is so ingrained into me that it puts an extra layer of difficulty to learning what the new character has without just switching back to what i know/know i can do without any outside muscle memory messing me up. Great vid as alwahs Brian

My real fear is Brian shaving his stache.

This concept really hits home with me, and I'll explain why: For me, I was a casual FGC fan and didn't really get into the community until a year ago. Eventually, I bought SFV (the week of Christmas 2020), which is my first major FGC game. I'm a Ryu main-I know, he's everywhere, but I like his simple effectiveness. I'm still working on becoming a better player. I'm in the home stretch of learning fundamentals, and beginning to learn the "advanced basics" (basically, building off the basics, like combo optimization and using EX better). Partially because I really like Ryu, but also because I'm still learning, I'm mostly sticking to him. I'm learning how to play Cammy as a secondary character-because ranked doesn't allow character select or separate character levels, I don't want to start playing her online until I know I'm solid enough with Ryu to understand the fundamentals. That's not all bad. But as you pointed out, if I get into the habit of "only play Ryu", I'll screw myself in the long term. Now, I'm new, so it's not as bad for me because I'm still learning. But once I get good with Ryu, and I'm at a point where my general skill is solid, I'll start playing Cammy. I don't need to drop Ryu, and because changing or learning characters doesn't hurt, it's overall good for me. Plus, Ryu is my boy, but Cammy is my waifu. Gotta play the waifu.

"Hi, future me! Practice more". Killed me

Ah someone who is ha ing a hard time choosing a main this gives me some piece of mind that I should just try what I feel now and switch to learn if I run into a wall.

I stuck with Balrog through so many years during SF4 and quite frequently won some locals. However, I regret quite a lot of it. I didn't want to learn new characters because I viewed myself as a loyalist and it was such a shackle. One day I got bored and tried out Fei Long and realised just how natural he felt to play for me. Things clicked faster and I felt more comfortable. So the entire time, there was a character that I would have had more fun with over the years but I ignored it due to some ill perceived value towards being a loyalist. I just recently dropped Dudley in 3S last year for Ken because I finally admitted to myself that I simply had more fun with Ken and the only reason I didn't play him was because of the dumb idea of character loyalty. It truly is a mental shackle that most will never escape because they won't even attempt to challenge their own beliefs. This topic definitely resonated with me hard.

Can't be a character loyalist if you can't even settle on a main ;(

Great video! Also...love the ttt2 music in the background...🔥🔥🔥

See, I'm a guy that sticks with one character while I learn the mechanics of the game. Then I branch out. When I played sfv, I wanted ken to be my best but then I branched out to lucia and seth when I started understanding the game a bit more

What makes Punk Godlike is his multiple character knowledge and match ups. Exceptional fundamentals is what creates multiple character usage with your main.

I'm glad you released this video. I just got back into SFV this season and I exclusively play Ryu and have been debating picking G for a little while now, but didn't want to spend money on new characters.. Thank you for the push to try something new.

This is how I view character loyalty At top level play, you generally know how most characters work since you've seen it all before and know what to look for, so you can swap characters pretty smoothly. At low level play, people are learning the basics which you can learn with any character (unless it's a weird character). So they shouldn't try to be loyal. It's mid level play where maining a character really matters since you'll improve so much faster since you need to get used to the more subtle intricacies of whatever game you are playing. There are pros and cons for high or low tier characters. High tier characters are just outright good and usually have more options, however they can let you get complacent with what you are doing if you're not careful and you may not always be able to recognize it right away. That's where low tiers come into play, they force you to think outside the box constantly to overcome whatever problems they have. My experience with character loyalty for the curious: Thinking back to things I've tried to claim as my "character loyalist" kind of thing, I actually really don't stay loyal. Character (or weapon) loyalty is a thing outside of fighting games too. I usually like to "master" something, then move onto the next playstyle. I'm thinking about getting into more normal fighting games, but Smash is the game I chose to be competitive with. So I've tried to be a character loyalist to Meta Knight and Lucario the longest. In Smash 4 I just wrecked everyone with them and they were high tier. Smash Ultimate on the other hand is a different story because while they didn't change too much, everyone else got buffed so much more significantly. Also Meta Knight wants the early up air KO which is harder to do in Ultimate since that was the largest thing going for him in Smash 4. Also I've been hearing from a lot of Meta Knight players that his combos just don't connect properly which is a big problem for a combo character. Though that's only what I heard, when I drop a combo I always blame myself and try to improve on it. Also Lucario's aura got nerfed quite a bit, along with Rage, which made him insane in Smash 4. However with everyone KOing so early in Ultimate, he's unlikely to get the high aura he needs since he'll be KO'd before that happens. (he gets more aura the more he is damaged). I was a loyalist to these characters because I have a strong connection with them outside of smash. Then they just so happen to have pretty sweet movesets that I love. Meta Knight is fast, multijumps to be aerial, has a sword, and while dimensional cape doesn't get used that much, it's a constant threat to the opponent if they dare to think to use a slow option. Lucario when he doesn't have high aura (which is often in Ultimate), he is actually one of the more "honest" characters in the roster since his moveset doesn't really allow for it. He also benefits from general tech more than most other characters, so he's one of my go-to characters if I want to improve with everyone in the game since you'll be suffering if you play Lucario and don't do that. Could make an argument for b-reverse aura stuff, or his counter, but compared to most of the roster that's hardly anything. In a game where cheesing your opponent out with early stocks or high damage combos is commonplace with Lucario not getting high aura, he struggles like crazy. If I were to enter a tournament, Meta Knight and Lucario would be rather low on my priority to pick despite probably putting more time into them than anyone else. They are just really hard to win with in Ultimate. Meanwhile, I can pick up other characters like Wolf, or R.O.B. and just absolutely destroy anybody despite not practicing with them much since their options are so good and versatile. Currently I've been trying to play Sephiroth who is my new "loyalty main" since I love the character a bunch and he just feels so natural to use, and I've been getting tons of wins with him. With that said, in a couple months I'll probably have another "character crisis" and try to main someone else, I struggle to stay on the same character. The reason why I picked smash to be my "try-hard" game is because I love all the characters in it for their own reason. Most fighting games I struggle to find even one character I want to play. Been tempted to play Street Fighter though as I once picked Vega as my character because he looked like a cool ninja guy back in Street Fighter 2, and in Street Fighter 4 I learned to love being so nimble with long range and jumping off the walls. Though I have to look at the roster again since Vega's obsession with beauty makes him lose some badass points, and there's a lot of new characters. With all this said, I'm not the best player around. I have a lot of characters in Elite Smash, but that doesn't mean much since sometimes even in Elite Smash you'll see people spamming certain strategies and when I see that it just makes me facepalm.

As a character loyalist I still play a bunch of other characters for fun, having pocket characters is always handy but it also helps with learning MU's and mind set of the person your playing against if you've played there character a bit as well

Even at a lower level, where matchupd matter less, I think it can be useful to jump around. Get your ass handed to you by a character, but have no clue what is safe or unsafe on block? Play them. You'll of course learn your own safe and unsafe moves... And then get a sense for when you can and can't punish your opponent, even by getting stomped yourself at times. It can be more time consuming than labbing, but you can both build flexibility and matchup knowledge at once without necessarily needing to know what exactly to lab. I started out with Smash, personally. While I mained inkling, I was familiar with just about the entire roster and knew all of the weird interactions between moves. I.E. Link's shield offers passive protection from projectiles, but not at his feet. So under charging or aiming your shots low on some characters allows you to zone him when otherwise it wouldn't work.

im not loyal to characters, im loyal to archetypes. that archetype being 'pretty girl character'. usually i get what i want in every tier.

I found this very insightful, I play smash but this was definitely helpful for me. Thank so much for talking about this :)

Brian mentioning the "no fear" aspect of switching characters that benefits them to win immediately made me think of SonicFox & how they approached DBFZ from my perspective. Always looking for something cheap / good that fits their needs & wants, never staying with anything that will hold them back. Leffen is another example honestly.

Funnily enough I have a friend who played Rose in SFIV and always droned about SFV not having his favorite character in it. Cut to a few years and he spends about half a day playing the character he's always wanted in the game before abandoning her because she's too slow...

i’ve been debating on whether or not i should pick cammy up (i main sagat) for about 2 months. this video helped me decide yes! thanks brian!

That thumbnail made me laugh way more than it should have lmao

Hopped into the game when Arcade Edtion dropped, didn't play much back then. Was kinda new to playing fighters more seriously. Started with Sakura, stopped playing for a year or 2, never played much to begin with. Came back, started rockin' Sakura again and all that, hopped onto Seth then Akuma to try them out and stuff. Then I remembered how much I've always wanted Cammy to liquify my face with her firm ass ever since the game came out and now I'm all set 👍

was playing juri now abigail lookin kinda cute

IMO character loyalty has a cost toward your win%. The question is how many % are you willing to pay for fun/fulfillment?

I think it's also really important for improvement. A lot of the time, for me at least, the way over a plateau is a character switch to learn some new concepts.

I think familiarity is a big part of it too. Being loyal to a character often means them getting a lot of your play time, especially early on. I made the huge mistake of maining Rock Howard day one in KoF XIV when it came out on PC. Because I was learning fighting games in general I didn't really know how bad he was because learning the game was hard enough as is. Fast forward a few years and I'm shackled to this character who constantly fails me in part because of loyalty as Rock is just the coolest, but more because I've played him so much that I've become comfortable with navigating tricky situations, playing neutral, anti airing, and making it out of clutch scenarios with him. The tools aren't good, but there's enough of them to trick me into thinking I just could have played it smarter. I've tried to replace him many times but often when push comes to shove just having more time being in and dealing with tough situations as him ends up paying off more kn the short term than switching to one the various high tiers I've labbed but lack the experience with would. The answer is just to put more time in better characters, and the more I pick Rock instead of someone else it becomes harder and harder feeling to break this bad habit. Its a nasty negative feedback loop. I greatly look forward to XV so I no longer have to live with this curse and can just pick good characters.

Honestly, somewhat unrelated to the video, but just food for discussion. Character loyalty in the casual scene is pretty popular because its like our identity. Being known as "The Balrog guy" or "the Gief guy" feels good for that reason. But in all honesty, I think its our secondaries and our pockets that help define us and our identity as players more. There's a lot of "Gief guys" out there. But how many of them have Ken as a secondary and Ed as a pocket? Probably not many. My point? Our mains are the ones we gravitate to first, but our choices in secondary and pocket characters are what truly give us that flair of individuality, and therefore, we are defined by these more so than our mains. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

That's a fast upload

The F in Brian_F stands for Funky Kong.

Love the motivational talk and sharing of experience even though I'm just a low level non-competitive player (I play ranked but that doesn't count, right). I actually love trying out different characters, especially the new ones but when I do I drop at least two sub-league's if not a full league. Although I know that it shouldn't bother me, it always hurts at least a bit. So I totally agree that it's scary to try out different characters. I mean, I feel it while not even being a competitive player.

I am not even close playing on a high level, but it is fun to hear the mindset of high level player. Heck i dont even play SF, just Tekken. Dropping my main to get more wins actually made me better with my main, because now i know their frame data, and match ups more. Like studying your opponent and shit.

I agree, fellow Seth main Brian_F

Watching this after finally dropping S Broly makes me feel better about my decision.

Brian, if you/your editor is reading this. Consider looking through Infiltration's run to GF in the CPT EA Asia 1 quals. Not only did the entire bracket have this crazy breadth of characters, infiltration after such a long hiatus from competition came back with 3 "mid-tiers" that fit into strategies that not only fit his style of play but are also strong against his opponents at each match. Thought that his run was related to this video.

yea thats a cool video and all, but what i really wanna know is where can i buy that tshirt?

It's funny you say that.. because it's honestly fear that will never bind me to one character and idk how to change it. 3:55 and on

Well said. And congrats on the fifty k!

I mean it can be. Personally I respect both loyalists and people with counter picks/ switch with the meta. I usually stick with 2 characters.

I think character loyalty can be fun but it's best to not take it seriously I wanted to be a Beerus loyalist for the longest time but I just couldn't make him work for me, he's still one of my faves but I gotta play full unga bunga teams, I prefer winning to having a quirky main

Im a gill loyalist and this video motivated me to learn G or Bison

Watch Sanford Kelly | "Pick a top-tier" on KZfaq. 11 years ago video... Sanford was speaking the truth.

Character loyalty is the catalyst for the beginning of your carrer

I appreciate the way you think man...

I lost it when that guy used BBTag as an example of a not dead game when it was literally one of the quickest fighting games to die

Yeah. I agree. I change mains after a while. I have a main in Tekken 7, but I play other characters a lot because I like a change in pace. Now I have like 5 or so favorited

I mained Rashid up until zeku came out and that was the first time i felt motivated to learn another character. I still play Rashid when zeku burns out but i with i played both more regularly. It brings up one of my biggest complaints about sf5 and that's i wish they allowed Character select when a match is found. The games design encourages Character loyalty because of the hoops you jump through just to pick someone else

Switching to Eleven is killing me

hey cool shirt, and nice advice.

Amen brotha

I was stuck with Nash for 4 years. Then I got my USFIV main back after waiting for so long. None of the other characters except from maybe G interested me and honestly I was memeing with G. Poison since she came out, however, has been the only reason left for me to play SFV. I performed much better with her. And then COVID hit and I hated the hell out of the netcode and never grew. Least I'm happy with the character I play offline.

Another great video, I've switched mains and it creates a "grass is always greener" effect, so of course I went back. It is important to know when you're being stubborn about a matchup being bad or not being willing to adapt to bad situations. I'm glad Smash is getting in the conversation, but SSBM has great top tier diversity. The "play Fox" comment is really ignorant of that, especially with how well Falcon players have been doing in the last year (& against Fox/Falco). Zain making Fox players reconsider playing Fox vs. Marth.. Honestly I just don't want someone to be turned off from the game after hearing that. Most characters are fun to play, in unique ways that get deeper the more you play.

As a Tekken player, I have a worse time learning new characters because of how much more I have to learn and I don't have the legacy skill to back it up.

In the arcade days, using 1 character was did because it took forever to learn all the tech for a character. There was no other way else to learn all that the character could do. Add to it you could play at home to get your chops up. With this age of communication that is not the case anymore. You can go online and find all the tech you want before you even start the game. So it is no longer needed to main 1 character. But there is advantage to it and disadvantages. Your Balrog is scary, would he be as scary without the time u put in with? Is this a jack of all trades, master of none? Bruce Lee said " I do not fear the man that has practice a thousand kicks but I do fear the man that has practice 1 kick a thousand times

I switched from Ryu to Akuma. And it was scary. A lot of muscle memory to forget and to learn.

It's a shackle I'm willing to keep.

Rose's QCB+P orb is pretty important for her but it's 38 frames so there are very few times when you can use it without getting punished. Her buttons are either very slow or stubby. But maybe most of all she's a zoner in SFV. Big fan 👍

But it can also be a motivator to even get you to play. I picked up a game just cause it had Skullomania in it lol.

The recent trend towards pre-selected characters for online has really nailed people down to a main. In a tournament or casual setting I may have a secondary to use in specific matchups, against specific players, or just in game 1. In online ranked I'm committed to playing the full set with a single character no matter what, and often times that means picking my main and probably winning or picking my secondary and probably losing.

I PLAY ABIGAIL BECAUSE OTHER CHARACTERS TOO SCARY AND FAST STRONG LIKE CAR AND TWICE AS SMART

Tbh I learn other characters because playing just one character constantly gets boring. Plus you get a deeper overall understanding of that specific character matchup.

Over in poker they call this "Being pot committed." I think there's also this perverse fear of retroactively feeling like the time you already spent was wasted. Of picking up a new style, absolutely owning with it, and going, "Wait, I could have been doing this the whole time?" I'd bet that for most people, if it actually happened, this feeling would be completely overwhelmed by, y'know, Being Successful, but when you're looking at it as a potential future and it hasn't happened yet the sense of feeling weird about not having done it sooner is just as real as the success.

Maining some characters, weapons, or even toolkits required no loyalty. And its also even best to main more than just one for other purposes as well, just like building a backup

It was easier in SF4 where you could pick your character in ranked matches. I just get too lazy because I don’t want to constantly change my character in training room battle settings.

I just cant wait for Oro

I find it good to have a main character that your loyal to, but you should also have a few backups. I like to play all of the characters in games to learn matchups for my main.

There is nothing better than sf4 t.hawk.

I also think this can be worse when characters play WILDLY different across the cast. I play mostly Guilty Gear Xrd, and I play Bedman. I haven’t labbed a character with a double jump, run, or standard airdash in like 600 hrs of in game time, and I have a nightmare of a time messing with, for example, Faust. He’s a character I really like but in terms of ground movement he’s weird as hell. In terms of air momentum, he’s weird as hell. In terms of j.2K cancels he’s weird as hell. It’s really hard to pick up a new char in this game imo and I love playing bedman, but there are some terrible matchups that I really would like another char for. Been actually trying to pick up a bit of a Faust recently, but the learning curve really is steep.

I played Hakan all through SFIV and could never get myself to switch. I did well with him but whenever I tried to convince myself to switch I'd lose with my new character to someone I knew I could have beat with my Hakan. The shackle was real and I didn't want to put in the work to get better with a new character at the expense of losing along the way.

I will never drop my boy ED I troll ppl with his smile after I win and leave 😂

Sometimes characters just don't feel as fun to play in the newer game compared to how they were in the older one. And that can be disappointing. But when the opposite happens, that's a great feeling!

I started playing Ryu when I picked up the game last season as I've only ever used him when playing SF. (The last time I played was SF2) It wasn't fun but It took me months before I considered changing. I started Ed and haven't looked back since.

Yeah for example me, i started playing sf5 last year using sagat. This was my first FG and since then i tried characters like laura, mika, chun-li, etc... The thing is, changing was really scary, i tought "wow this character is so different from sagat" and that why i dont change, i feel like if i invest in other character too i will get worst at playing sagat because their game plan is different, their buttons are different and i dont have the confidence on my skill to switch every time. (And keep improving)

This is one of the huge advantages of team games. People play up the difficulty of having to learn multiple characters... ... but realistically you should ALWAYS learn multiple characters. At least with team games you can have a new pocket teamed up with old reliable so you aren't completely flopping like a fish when you learn a new character.

It's kind of a shame how fighting games have so many characters nowadays yet only a few of them thrive in high level play

Love this vid. I despise the character loyalty mentality.

With all the videos I've been seeing about character loyalty I might finally switch to Zato in ggst

I really think in the era of patches that being a character loyalist is a death sentence. I'm not a great player by any means, but I dropped guile like a rock after this last patch lol

Dude I legit play nearly every character in SFV I used to main Zeku but now I'm all over Sagat and Ed

I agree with everything in this video, but also at low levels of play I saw a lot of players get frustrated with losing a lot, and rather than look inwards at themselves; they looked outwards and blamed their character's placement on the tier list. While this might have been a valid complaint if they were losing in a grand final, these were pot monsters like me and we all just sucked. EXCEPT I stuck with my bottom tier character and they constantly jumped to whatever they heard was top tier, essentially regularly resetting their own character experience back to zero. Over time I graduated to bring a mediocre player with my bottom tier, and the players who were my peers could no longer beat me.

i think for beginners its helpful to stick to one character but after you gain experience its best to be diverse with your options instead of hamstringing yourself to one character.

I havent even watched the video, and I already agree, But I'm still not switching characters

I have no intention of being a top player, just growing in skill and understanding. However, I still have this fear! I tend to have the same main for years in all the games I play. Maybe I'll try and learn something new.