What criteria did you base your main character choice on?

[TasteTheRainbow]

My system has always been the same in every game I've played, new or old, good or bad. There was an article on the old SRK that actually covered it pretty well but it was lost in the noise of the upgrade, so I'll try to summarize it best I can (the article was a lot better than what I can say tho).

1) Does the character fit my playstyle? This is the most important one. A character that does not fit the player's way of playing the game ends up being less effective, this should be a given but a lot of people just don't stick with it and would rather play the very top character or the character they find the "coolest" in design. It's no problem if the character DOES fit your playstyle while being either of those things, but too many people (mostly people learning games) don't heed this requirement.
2) Is the character underpowered? It's all good if your character fits your playstyle, but if he sucks, you won't be winning a whole lot with him or her. Which brings me to the third point:
3) Is the character top 10? This is what you want to shoot for. Some games have more balanced casts and you can add/remove some numbers from that list depending on the cast, but 10 is a nice even number to shoot for. This allows the people who despise "tier whoring" to at least have a character that is useable in one way or another. In MK's case, the top 10 covers roughly 40% of the cast, so that's quite a margin still (and you can probably even boost it to 15 in MK's case since the game is still so new and feels balanced enough)

Of course, I still have "fun" characters but nothing I could call a main. If the characters I wanted to main due to design end up failing the checklist, they get thrown out, simple as that. My goal isn't to only have fun but also to WIN, and while it's entirely possible to win with a lower tiered character, I'd rather not handicap myself.

 

[Armour Hyena]

Smoke.

I smoke way too much.
Love the charachter and mythology behind him.
Like the playstyle, suited to my personal style.
He looks badass.

 

[Organelle]

"You no pick character. Character pick you."

Let me preface this by saying I suspect I have undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome I've never really thought about this, but here goes:

First for me is design. Does the character flat out look aesthetically pleasing to me. If not, NEXT! Example: I hate how Liu Kang sounds, and I have an unhealthy hatred of his face, in general. On the other end, I appreciate the work that was put into Kung Lao's original costume.

Second, is it fun to play them? If not, NEXT! Example: Kano is a nice artistic design from the NRS team, but his specials aren't really fun for me to do and see on the screen, so I put him down.

Third would be, is the character too easy to win with? If they are, NEXT! I need some sort of satisfaction out of a win. It just makes the game more fun to me, which is the foundation of playing to begin with. Example: Although Kung Lao's design is tight, he's gotta go.

Lastly, does everybody pick him? If so, NEXT! I like to pick character's that aren't made for the masses. Example: Everything about Scorpion is nice, but everybody picks him, so he's out.

So that leaves a good character design, not top tier, not the most popular character, satisfying to play as and win with. I'll adjust my playstyle accordingly.

SSF4: Dhalsim. Virtua Fighter: Goh MK9: Sektor.

As for you Organelle, based on everything I've read so far, I think you're gonna end up with Noob and Reptile.

Good prediction.

I started as scorpion.

Then I went down a massive list and ended up with 7 or so characters.

My second to last cut was Reptile, Shang Tsung, Noob.

But after trying quan chi, I am sitting on quan chi and noob. (I didn't like Reptiles lack of a teleport, and shang tsung seemed a bit too one dimensional)

My system has always been the same in every game I've played, new or old, good or bad. There was an article on the old SRK that actually covered it pretty well but it was lost in the noise of the upgrade, so I'll try to summarize it best I can (the article was a lot better than what I can say tho).

1) Does the character fit my playstyle? This is the most important one. A character that does not fit the player's way of playing the game ends up being less effective, this should be a given but a lot of people just don't stick with it and would rather play the very top character or the character they find the "coolest" in design. It's no problem if the character DOES fit your playstyle while being either of those things, but too many people (mostly people learning games) don't heed this requirement.
2) Is the character underpowered? It's all good if your character fits your playstyle, but if he sucks, you won't be winning a whole lot with him or her. Which brings me to the third point:
3) Is the character top 10? This is what you want to shoot for. Some games have more balanced casts and you can add/remove some numbers from that list depending on the cast, but 10 is a nice even number to shoot for. This allows the people who despise "tier whoring" to at least have a character that is useable in one way or another. In MK's case, the top 10 covers roughly 40% of the cast, so that's quite a margin still (and you can probably even boost it to 15 in MK's case since the game is still so new and feels balanced enough)

Of course, I still have "fun" characters but nothing I could call a main. If the characters I wanted to main due to design end up failing the checklist, they get thrown out, simple as that. My goal isn't to only have fun but also to WIN, and while it's entirely possible to win with a lower tiered character, I'd rather not handicap myself.

So who do you put in your top 10. It seems like there are only a hand full of characters that are 'bad' and it seems like there are only a couple top tier characters, so I have no idea where mid and upper mid tier characters fall or who they are for that matter.

 

[TasteTheRainbow]

So who do you put in your top 10. It seems like there are only a hand full of characters that are 'bad' and it seems like there are only a couple top tier characters, so I have no idea where mid and upper mid tier characters fall or who they are for that matter.

Since this game is fairly new, I sort of skipped that step (but not quite). I look at what the established top players said and made my choice accordingly. Most of them agree on at least a few characters being better than others (Raiden, Sub, NW, Johnny, Kung, etc.) so I just went with that.

I'd elaborate more but I need to get to work now. Sorry!

 

[Organelle]

God, I still can't pick a character!!!

My roommates roster is down to Sub-zero, Scorpion, and Smoke.

Mine is up to Quan Chi, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Scorpion, and Noob. And I am starting to find Cyrax and Sektor tempting. Too many good characters to choose from. They all mesh with me a little, but no one feels quite right yet. And ETC is like 3 weeks away =(

 

[SCK ERR0R MACR0]

I just took most characters into practice mode for a bit and played around. From there I narrowed it down to about 8, and worked from there. In my experience, most of the time with fighting games, I end up maining someone I didn't expect. My main criteria for a character is consistency--and that doesn't always mean the character playing easy, sometimes I'm just more consistent with certain characters/play styles (especially with complex combos, it seems to vary wildly for me). I'm not looking for the highest damage, but rather characters I feel like I can get openings, mix it up, and be consistent with.

As of right now, I still play quite a few characters, but I'm really leaning towards Liu Kang. He has some great mixups, safe strings that lead to big combos, and decent zoning tools. Kung Lao is of course a great option, but I'm gambling a little on Liu Kang, which I think can give you an edge as most people have played a lot of Kung Laos, but maybe not so many Liu Kangs.

 

[Organelle]

Did a lot more messing around today, and I have to say that I like Ermac, Raiden, Subzero, and Scorpion best. All of them have excellent escapes and decent zoning capabilities. Additionally they can all dish a fair amount of paint once the opponent slips up. Now to figure out which one I will main O_O.

 

[DanCock]

diagonal fireball and a decent low poking/special attack. i dont care if the character is hightier low tier whatever... oo looks like sindel fits the bill

 

[Kwon]

Did a lot more messing around today, and I have to say that I like Ermac, Raiden, Subzero, and Scorpion best. All of them have excellent escapes and decent zoning capabilities. Additionally they can all dish a fair amount of paint once the opponent slips up. Now to figure out which one I will main O_O.

When the opponent messes up, what punishing string do you like the most/feel that you can do without least problems?

 

[Organelle]

When the opponent messes up, what punishing string do you like the most/feel that you can do without least problems?

I like scorpions 3 punch into stagger state with teleport punch into ex carpet fire a lot. With subzero if I freeze em in the air I just do his 2,2,2, and if they are on the ground I do triple punch into stagger with slide kick to finish and then clone and run away, lol. (Sorry I don't know the long combo strings yet, I am just going based on intuitive play right now). With ermac I just love fireball/force push. Most opponents I have played so far suck and find that those are hard enough to deal with.

 

[Kwon]

Well, my criteria was that my character had to have Walken-Hair.

 

[Smoke90]

Im a fan of all the ninjas.

So i Main sub-zero, noob saibot and smoke.

Depending on who my opponent is, ill pick my character.

Noob is great at zoning. Sub zero has easy Bnb combos if you can freeze your opponent. and smoke is just super fast(telepunch)

 

[Organelle]

Well, my criteria was that my character had to have Walken-Hair.

LOL! epic win

Definitely down to Ermac and Sub-zero with Ermac having the slight lead in the potential main category. These guys will definitely be my main and alt though.

 

[Jinx]

My main is Kitana.

Originally I played Nightwolf, then Cyber Sub, and a bunch of other people. Mostly those two, but that was the phase in which I was still very new to the game and just messing with characters. I still do that, but I've decided on Kitana. I saw someone (I think it was Haunts?) playing with her on a stream and her play-style and moves just drew me in. Something about her being able to keep someone in the air with her fans, and her crazy combos because of that. Not to mention she's hot. Big breasts and clad in my favorite color helps. So I decided to pick her up for good, and here I am now. This was just in MK9 too, lol, my only real serious MK.

I play Sub-Zero and Reptile as secondaries now, too. I just find them aesthetically pleasing and I enjoy their play-styles as well.

 

[Organelle]

My main is Kitana.

Originally I played Nightwolf, then Cyber Sub, and a bunch of other people. Mostly those two, but that was the phase in which I was still very new to the game and just messing with characters. I still do that, but I've decided on Kitana. I saw someone (I think it was Haunts?) playing with her on a stream and her play-style and moves just drew me in. Something about her being able to keep someone in the air with her fans, and her crazy combos because of that. Not to mention she's hot. Big breasts and clad in my favorite color helps. So I decided to pick her up for good, and here I am now. This was just in MK9 too, lol, my only real serious MK.

I play Sub-Zero and Reptile as secondaries now, too. I just find them aesthetically pleasing and I enjoy their play-styles as well.

I really tried to pick up reptile but Sub and Ermac just seemed to have much better control.

 

[Tw1sted]

in the demo i worked on mileena. when her damage got nerfed in retail i can to the conclusion that she just wasn't going to be all that good. i picked up ermac from my umk3 and deception experience with him. i learned his bnbs quick and took him to PDP where i got bodied. i had dabbled a bit with liu kang since his juggles are mad easy. started playing him a whole lot to build my mixup game that was pretty lacking. once i started to figure out his matchups against the rest of the cast and seeing his weaknesses i picked up smoke since he filled in the blank spots for kang really well. after getting news of his otg getting removed i started working on other characters. just recently started playing c.sub zero. his bnb is rediculously hard to time but i'm enjoying playing as him since hes so rarely seen. now after getting my ass handed to me by a bunch of different kitanas i start picking her up today. i feel like the more characters i learn the better i understand matchups for everyone else. so i'm probably gonna keep learning a bunch of different characters, but right now my mains are liu kang, ermac, and smoke.

 

[Sega]

in the demo i worked on mileena. when her damage got nerfed in retail i can to the conclusion that she just wasn't going to be all that good. i picked up ermac from my umk3 and deception experience with him. i learned his bnbs quick and took him to PDP where i got bodied. i had dabbled a bit with liu kang since his juggles are mad easy. started playing him a whole lot to build my mixup game that was pretty lacking. once i started to figure out his matchups against the rest of the cast and seeing his weaknesses i picked up smoke since he filled in the blank spots for kang really well. after getting news of his otg getting removed i started working on other characters. just recently started playing c.sub zero. his bnb is rediculously hard to time but i'm enjoying playing as him since hes so rarely seen. now after getting my ass handed to me by a bunch of different kitanas i start picking her up today. i feel like the more characters i learn the better i understand matchups for everyone else. so i'm probably gonna keep learning a bunch of different characters, but right now my mains are liu kang, ermac, and smoke.

i def feel the same way. I was on kabal as my main and its still lookin like he will be my main, but there are bad matchups and thats when the knowledge of more chararcters comes into play. I initially chose kabal because he was the most appealing character to me the first time i played umk3. then i soon found out he was top tier and i was like oh cool. then mk9 came out and oh there was choices to be made. ive based almost every character of choice so far because of umk3. there was ermac and kung lao and smoke that i liked in umk3 as well so i tried all of them and smoke was probably the one i liked the least. just his style i guess.i was hyped about noob saibot because of his trailer but he lacks midscreen combos so only use him against certain characters. then i found out about cyraxs command grab and i was like oh wow thats freakishly good. eventually i ended up not liking it so much because i got a taste of my own medicine and thats ALL most the cyrax players online would do and it just became annoying. so i started basing my combos with cyrax with an occasional cg but mostly meter combos (especially cause of what i heard about the cg being nerfed) and i didnt wanna base cyrax all around his cg. im messing around with other characters but i have yet to even touch sindel, kano, baraka, shang tsung and a few others.

all in a nut shell, kabal is my main. secondary is still undecided but its one of cyrax, ermac, noob, and maybe kung lao. oh and reptile looks beast so he actually might be it lol

 

[Organelle]

i def feel the same way. I was on kabal as my main and its still lookin like he will be my main, but there are bad matchups and thats when the knowledge of more chararcters comes into play. I initially chose kabal because he was the most appealing character to me the first time i played umk3. then i soon found out he was top tier and i was like oh cool. then mk9 came out and oh there was choices to be made. ive based almost every character of choice so far because of umk3. there was ermac and kung lao and smoke that i liked in umk3 as well so i tried all of them and smoke was probably the one i liked the least. just his style i guess.i was hyped about noob saibot because of his trailer but he lacks midscreen combos so only use him against certain characters. then i found out about cyraxs command grab and i was like oh wow thats freakishly good. eventually i ended up not liking it so much because i got a taste of my own medicine and thats ALL most the cyrax players online would do and it just became annoying. so i started basing my combos with cyrax with an occasional cg but mostly meter combos (especially cause of what i heard about the cg being nerfed) and i didnt wanna base cyrax all around his cg. im messing around with other characters but i have yet to even touch sindel, kano, baraka, shang tsung and a few others.

all in a nut shell, kabal is my main. secondary is still undecided but its one of cyrax, ermac, noob, and maybe kung lao. oh and reptile looks beast so he actually might be it lol

Lol, your experience sounds almost as circular as mine ;D. At least you settled on a definite main though.

Well now the game is looking to be turning into Ermac and Jax for me. I think Jax is severely underutilized and with the buffs he has coming up, I think he will be just as viable as nightwolf.

 

[Organelle]

Well ... for those of you who may have been wondering who I would settle on ... it ended up being Reptile. I liked zoning with noob and ermac but they didnt have rushdown ability. I like nightwolf and jaxs ability to get in, but their zoning game is not good. And I realized reptile and kabal fuse rushdown and zoning quite well. My gf mains kabal though, and I don't want to steal her main, so Reptile it is =D. Kabal may be my alt one day after I master Reptile.

Thanks for all the meaningful contributions to this thread that slowly sent me down this path ...

 

[Runefyst]

I usually base my choice on what characters I like personality-wise. The other determining factor for me is whether or not the character is popular, because I dislike mirror matches.

For MK, that's put me on Mileena as my main, and I'm just starting to play around with Sektor for an alt.

 

[Scarlett Viper]

I pick who I like this is usally determind by if I like the character's design,personallity and playstyle

 

[Sao87]

I picked characters that happen to seem like douche bags, Johnny Cage and Kano. Jax will be my final character but I don't know if he is douchey enough.

 

[VIDA]

I picked Scorpion at first cause I was familiar with him from the demo. I then moved onto Ermac b/c Ive always loved his char concept and design as the telekinetic red ninja. I esp loved the back story of his character creation, and how it meshed with his in game char profiles. I also liked how he played in UMK3 alot with the fun (yet broken) telekinetic juggle.

I started being drawn to Kitana when I saw Konqrr's bnb combo video, and watching his UMK3 Kitana. Then I started playing her and really liked her playstyle, plus she's a cool female ninja with a mighty regal quality, which doesnt hurt.

 

[Sonya Blade]

I've always had a thing for fast characters or mixup heavy characters. I love Sonya in this game because she is pretty agile and has a lot of cool tricks I can take advantage of that fit my playstyle.

Also, I'm not gonna lie; I typically use characters that have good aesthetics. As dumb as it sounds, I have more interest in using characters that look cool to me. For example, I have absolutely no interest in using Sheeva, just because I don't like her character design.

 

[Sega]

update: kabal and NW ftw lol