Time to master a character

[Judgement]

How much time does it take for you to master a character?
And what are the requirements for 'mastering' a character in your opinion?

Cheersssss​

 

[Mischiiii]

My guess is that you probably need longer than the time it needs for the next game to come out. Just look at melee.

For me mastering a character would mean, that you know every possible combo string for every percentage of every character in the game. You need to make the best use of all the attacks in your disposal and again know how you can use every attack at every percentage against every character.

That’s something probably no one will ever achieve in this game. But some may come close to that in a few years.

 

[MG_3989]

I don’t know if anyone has ever truly “mastered” a character in any fighting game down to every last percent and every last combo and every last matchup and every last quirk, let alone a fighting game with over 70 characters. It would take a long long time if possible

If you’re talking about learning a character and their useful combos, their movement, their entire move set, and all their matchups, you can probably do that in about a couple of months depending on your skill level and how comfortable you are with the game and what experience you already have with the character. If you’re already good at the game and you wanna get a character up to tourney level I’d say it takes 2 weeks to a month maybe. It really depends

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I'm going to use an example:

If I "mastered" dark pit, whatever I think in my head, I should be able to do it. If I need to execute a plan against an opponent, I should be able to execute it with strong consistency. I should know the threat range of Dark Pit like I went to college to study him.

It should be to the point of I'm playing as myself rather than Dark Pit. Like, the character is just a shell, and after mastering them, the shell should dissolve with you, the player, emerging from it.

Being able to have that type of chemistry is what I define as mastering a character.

 

[MG_3989]

I'm going to use an example:

If I "mastered" dark pit, whatever I think in my head, I should be able to do it. If I need to execute a plan against an opponent, I should be able to execute it with strong consistency. I should know the threat range of Dark Pit like I went to college to study him.

It should be to the point of I'm playing as myself rather than Dark Pit. Like, the character is just a shell, and after mastering them, the shell should dissolve with you, the player, emerging from it.

Being able to have that type of chemistry is what I define as mastering a character.

This is what a lot of Melee players talk about in terms of mastering a character and why they love the game so much. The character becomes an extension of themselves and they can do whatever they want with them. I think Ultimate might have that potential too

 

[Keeshu]

I don't think it is possible to completely master a character in Smash. Best you can do is master inputs so you can move perfectly and not be distracted by thinking about inputs, learn all the matchups against your character, adapt quickly to what the opponent is doing, and to maintain a focused mentality throughout the match.

Every player plays different from each other (even if some players play very similarly). Even if it's the same person, they could play different just on a different day. You can't control how other people play (at best you can influence how they play by how you move in the game but that's not the point). People learn new extremely specific things about characters over the years as well. We are only human, so we are not going to be able to remember every single encounter we have had in our life and to process that information immediately to choose the proper action in a fraction of a second. There's a limit to how much information you'll be drawing off of when you play the game. Also you can unlearn good habbits by playing many bad players reinforcing you to do bad habits. So there will be times where you get slightly worse, but you'll get better again eventually. Even then, everyone (including top players) make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes can cost the match/set.

So with that said, I say it would be healthy mindset to always focus on improving and enjoying the process, because you're always going to be doing it. It's not just some goal where once you "master" a character you can stop playing them because other people will be improving. Requiring you to play even better overtime.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

This is what a lot of Melee players talk about in terms of mastering a character and why they love the game so much. The character becomes an extension of themselves and they can do whatever they want with them. I think Ultimate might have that potential too

Lol, all you're doing is playing with your main a loooot, hitting training mode to see all their movement quirks and timing, and just getting used to them in general. has nothing to do with the games themselves.

 

[Judgement]

Thanks for all your input so far, guys! Really useful insights.

 

[RepStar]

Like, a day. their attacks and specials are all mapped to the same button inputs, lol.

 

[MalanoMan]

First of all, what is our definition of mastery here? Mastery as in "you are the master" or mastery as in "comprehensive knowledge"? If were saying "Master" I'm gunna go ahead and say an arbitrary 1000 hours. If we're saying "comprehensive knowledge" Ill say 10 hours.

 

[MG_3989]

Lol, all you're doing is playing with your main a loooot, hitting training mode to see all their movement quirks and timing, and just getting used to them in general. has nothing to do with the games themselves.

I mean it does because the amount of movement options Melee offers is so much more than any other fighting game (not just Smash game) so you can make the character more of your own and develop a style that’s your own more easily. The more options you have the more potential control of a character you have

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I mean it does because the amount of movement options Melee offers is so much more than any other fighting game (not just Smash game) so you can make the character more of your own and develop a style that’s your own more easily. The more options you have the more potential control of a character you have

It's literally not. It's all about the connection between you, the player, and the character you choose. it's independent of the game.

If I put in the hours on 64 Kirby and "master" him, I will have such a connection that I'll practically be playing myself. People have been doing that since the classic street fighter 2 games.

EDIT: After some thought, this is a bit deeper than what we are discussing.

EDIT 2: time to dissect a bit more. It's going to be done in bullet points just because I want to be succinct.

1. Having more tools gives you more opportunity to express your playstyle, but that's it. You can express your playstyle perfectly fine with a limited palette, as long as your mechanical prowess are up to snuff.
2. Game mechanics are only part of what determines how many tools you have for expression. Melee puff has less tools than brawl diddy. Brawl olimar has more tools than melee samus. ST dhalsim has more tools than most of mvc2's cast. tools are relative to game mechanics and MUs.
3. As an analogy to real life stuff, painting is used for self-expression. people use as many colors as they can to express themselves as much as they can. Yet, Anders Zorn used 4 colors to make paintings like this:

Zorn's palette: Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black, Vermillion (Cadmium Red in modern times now), and Titanium white. Here's another example:

Heck, People use microsoft paint, a program created in the 90s, to create art that people can't make in photoshop (cuz they're not good):

Tools are just tools, it depends on the person to utilize as much as they can out of them.

 

[RepStar]

Did i say a day, i meant a few hours.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Did i say a day, i meant a few hours.

How about a year at least.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

It'll take a long time to Master a character.

Shouldn't take as long to Great (Elite Online wins) and Ultra (Local Tournament scene wins) a character though.

Always keep the next step in mind (and don't be like me and use Pokeball names as a ranking)