What Makes A Character Technical? (Lock Please)

[KingClubber]

Can someone list what makes a character technical?

What make one character more technical then the other?

 

[Varist]

Characters that require the frequent use of difficult/tedious to perform technique(s) to compete viably* in professional play are technical characters.

The frequency with which these techniques must be performed within a match shifts based on many factors. The difficulty of performing each individual technique varies from person to person.

Hence, the classifying of how technical a character is falls on the difficulty of each individual technique and how consistently they must be used. Because both of these elements are subjective, there can never be a consensus on which technical characters are more technical than other technical characters.

Observations like "Fox is more technical than Kirby" can be stated without issue because of the clear gap between those characters. Where the gap is not obvious, no ranking can be achieved.

*edit: Some characters can function competitively without using many of their ATs.


imo

 

[Mr Wizzrobe]

There are people far more qualified to answer this than me, but how "technical" a character is is based on the finger dexterity required to use said character effectively. Every character requires a certain amount of tech skill, but there are definitely some that are more difficult than others.

Hardest are Fox and Falco because of how many inputs (and how quick they are) you need to perform in order to execute their character specific techniques, such as waveshining, shine turnaround bairs, multishining, etc, in addition to being able to control such factors as falling speed, short hopping (with Fox specifically) that apply to all characters.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Much of Jigglypuff's stuff is tedious to perform but I'm not sure she counts as technical.

I almost guarantee this thread is going to devolve into a "Which characters are the most technical?" thread.

 

[Varist]

I agree, Jiggs is retardedly tedious to play. I think she's technical in a very unconventional way. I'm averse to calling her technical because she's as far from a fast-falling combo machine as possible. But she's difficult to use all the same

Spoiler

until you press down b rofl f**got puff players

 

[KirbyKaze]

So according to your first definition and most recent post, you have to:

A) require a constant stream of fast inputs or
B) be boring to use or
C) be difficult to use

In order to be a technical character?

Just about every character can be considered technical then. Except like Sheik. Sheik's fun for everyone, doesn't require constant fast inputs, and easy to play. even though just about everyone sucks horse nuts with her but for the sake of argument we'll ignore that.



edit:

I'm also unsure how your idea handles the fact that "difficult to use" and "boring to use" are relatively subjective things and vary greatly from person to person. You can have someone who finds Puff incredibly fun because of her surface simplicity and because she gives the feel of needing to do less to win. Similarly, you could as easily find someone who finds Marth boring as hell despite how "fun" a lot of people find him just because his inability to straight up kill people with a simple 2-hit throw combo (or similar) makes for a lot of dragged out matchups.

 

[KingClubber]

I'm not trying to start a fight about which character is more technical, i just caught myself from doing this because i realized that the term technical in Melee could mean something completely different from my own definition of what make a character technical.

I mean more then a year ago there was a contest of technical ability held with this video becoming said winner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdMA9wSDFUc&list=FLhMOYMhi5thV1crj4kf-NBw&index=64&feature=plpp

But when you argue what makes an action of a character technical, people opinion whether they be trolling or not get's low grade when it comes to being compare to say the tier list.

For example

Falco's foward-B stall vs Mewtwo's Teleport stall

Both have the same purpose

Falco's while quicker it only takes 3 actions, but Mewtwo's is slower but requires 4 actions.

 

[Varist]

KK, is that post directed at me, or did a mod delete some stuff?

 

[KirbyKaze]

That's directed at you, Varist. I just edited it a lot because my thoughts were poorly stated.

Generally, you can check if a mod edited a post because it shows the last editor's name.

 

[KingClubber]

The topic guyz?

Can no one explain it?

 

[KirbyKaze]

We need a working definition of "technical" before someone can answer your questions. Which has never been unanimously agreed upon. This makes responding somewhat difficult.

 

[SSBMLahti]

You're doomed if you do and you're doomed if you don't.

Unless you do both...

 

[Doser]

In my mind a technical character is one that requires a higher precision or speed of inputs than most other characters to be competitive in the current metagame. Being constantly frame perfect with jigglypuff would mean you are a very quick player, but that doesn't make jigglypuff technical.

Saying a character is technical because it is boring or that you aren't good with it doesn't make sense at all, it's like you don't even know what the word traditionally means.

Also, it's impossible to have a unanimous agreement on a word, because we aren't talking to the entire smash populace on these forums. All we can do is create a reasonable definition.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Within our online community of people that frequent these forums and post their thoughts and ideas here, a generally accepted definition for "technical" has never been made because too much variation exists.

Some people consider HugS technical because he shows extremely controlled gameplay, extremely solid fundamentals, and strong proficiency with spacing. Others don't consider him technical at all because he's playing Samus, and Samus doesn't require as many button inputs as Falco.

Some people consider phanna technical because he shows a lot of really cool stuff that requires extreme precision, finger speed, and hand dexterity. Others don't consider him technical at all because he's not playing in a way that is objectively good; a lot of actions are superfluous, unnecessary, or even detrimental.

And so forth and so on.

 

[Doser]

Those people can't be considered because they have no idea what they are talking about.

How do people associate technical, a word that has been used in many other videogames, with something like "objectively good" which is a nonsensical term itself.

I mean confusing technical with good basic play, literally boggles my mind. It's as if people confuse the word hot with smooth, and thus we can't ever define those words, when in fact they are easily separated.

I can easily see an argument regarding speed vs. precision, but that hardly comes up.

 

[KirbyKaze]

What's your definition of technical, then?

 

[Varist]

I thought tedious meant something else when it turns out it doesn't mean that at all. Your post confused me because I couldn't tell where "boring" was ever brought into the conversation. I'll offer my new definition and proceed with discussion from there.

Characters that require or prefer the frequent use of physically difficult-to-perform technique(s) to compete viably in professional play are technical characters.

Characters can have their technical ability ranked by:

- The frequency at which their technical techniques must be performed within a match.
(However, because these techniques are situational, that frequency will always change, and is hence subjective, and unreliable to use as a standard for ranking "technicality".)

- The difficulty of performing each individual technique.
(However, because the difficulty to perform these techniques can vary from the perspective of person to person, and their difficulty is hence subjective, this is an unreliable standard with which to rank "technicality".)

Consequently, there will never be a consensus on which characters are more technical than which characters, as there is no reliable standard with which to judge each character objectively.

Observations like "Fox is more technical than Kirby" can be made without issue because of the clear gap between those characters. Where the gap is not obvious, no ranking can be achieved.

 

[KirbyKaze]

If it's "difficulty to perform <important technique>" and we're dealing with frequency, then it's Fox.

 

[The Star King]

Technical is when required button inputs are either fast or have precise timings, so that whatever you're doing is difficult to perform consistently without practice. Basically, anything that is difficult to do purely on a physical basis.

 

[Doser]

What's your definition of technical, then?

I already gave it regarding a technical character, which is what we are discussing.

 

[KirbyKaze]

My bad.

I actually like that one so I'm going to go with it.

 

[KingClubber]

Yes that works for me too, I think that's it for this so if someone can lock this topic, please do so.

 

[Varist]

If you didn't intend to see a lengthy discussion why didn't you just use the Q&A thread

 

[-ShadowPhoenix-]

What's your definition of technical, then?

 

[Hax]

tech skill includes, but isn't limited to, APM. spacies are definitely the toughest in that department, but they're actually among the easiest when it comes to other forms of tech skill, such as precision. whereas characters like Falcon often have to land pixel- and frame-perfect moves, spacies are blessed with ridiculously generous hitboxes/durations that give them tons of room for error while they're chaining attacks.

i really think Falcon is the most technical character because his required APM is nearly on par with spacies while the precision required to play him is unparalleled

tech skill tier list among tournament characters:
Falcon
Fox
Peach
Falco

after that everyones easy as f*ck

 

[leffen]

Yoshi has way higher precision requirement than CF while having the APM of a spacie.
-He has the by far most 1 frame timings in the game and many of those are varying timings depending on how the opponent plays (spacies/CF has no such things) and he has very awkward hitboxes, even moreso than CF.

Of course, 99% of ppl that read this don't know **** about Yoshi and will just assume the generic fox/falco tops.

EDIT: Hax, what frame perfect things do CF have to use?

 

[Zephynazo]

Hax u forgot Marth...

 

[Ministry]

I was thinking captain falcon even before i read hax's post and for the same reason as hax's. I would also like to add that because of Falcons weight and speed its also harder to be more precise then say fox or falco. I agree with leffen though i just forgot about yoshi.

I don't think shine is required as much as people use it in game, Therfor people get a false sense of the character's required inputs.

I would say
Yoshi
falcon
peach
fox
falco
sheik

 

[Doser]

I don't think shine is required as much as people use it in game, therefore people get a false sense of the character's required inputs.

No, you can't do that. If most top foxes use shine a lot, you can't assume it is for nothing otherwise we are just writing what the metagame is and ignoring actual data. For example, if I use your logic I can say that falcons dash dance too quickly resulting in extra inputs that should be ignored, but I can't imagine having a way to even calculate when a dash dance is too fast or not needed in every specific match and then aggregating a total amount of excess we can remove.

 

[KingClubber]

Read the OP.

>_<

This is over with.

And

This isn't an who is more technical contest topic, this was just me wanting to understand the term technical in melee because there isn't really a complete definition of what being a technical skill is.

 

[King Funk]

I almost guarantee this thread is going to devolve into a "Which characters are the most technical?" thread.

Already done.

 

[Tekk]

-He has the by far most 1 frame timings in the game and many of those are varying timings depending on how the opponent plays (spacies/CF has no such things) and he has very awkward hitboxes, even moreso than CF.

Serious question: how many of those 1 frame timings you're talking about are actually required for a yoshi player to perform, and not only gimmicky ?

 

[leffen]

He got loads of non gimmicky stuff thats often 1-2 frame timings including:
-everything with his DJ, 1 frame is often a HUGE spacing difference. Turning around while keeping momentum is extremely hard too.
-SH Bair/uair, frame perfect timing at 2 places, allows you to do bair/uair and jump/waveland/nair before landing.
-DJCC, must be timed and predicted perfectly on many attacks.
-Parrying (varying timing, extremely valuable AT)
-His ledgestall(s)/eggstall.
-His DJ landing techniques, all 1-2 frame timings.
-Grabbing people out of air, 1 frame timing, useful for chaingrabbing fox/falco etc.

 

[The Star King]

Already done.

lol good job Hax

 

[Teczer0]

Closed due to request