Per Aspera Ad Astra: Characters For Beginners

Human nature strives for beauty. When you look at the magnificent paintings of Renaissance artists, the fancy architecture of Antoni Gaudi, the green alpine meadows, the crazy tricks of Travis Pastrana, the goal hit with a bicycle kick, the BlackHole in five players, or the perfect fighting round, your soul rejoices. It's not always possible to describe what is so beautiful in this or that phenomenon or form - you just know that you have witnessed something special.

Games and esports are full of this, and that's why so many people are ready to stop doing everything to watch the action with the hope of witnessing some moments that bring fire to their hearts. It's difficult to put into words those emotions you feel when you see the best players successfully perform the most difficult techniques.

However, it should be kept in mind that every cybersportsman and absolutely any high-level professional has something in common with any other player. Something that unites them with "mere mortals." They used to be beginners, too.

Certainly, not all beginners are equal. The most talented are likely to learn the basics of a game very quickly and rush to the stars. It is a long way for others, and some do not need it at all, as they just want to have fun when "pressing the keys" together with their friends. Precisely for them, there is mechanic support that allows for understanding the basics.

Simple characters are one of the main factors that help newcomers to adapt to a particular game. These are especially important in fighting and mob disciplines.

The purpose of many entry-level characters is to teach the novice the key features of the game mechanics and allow him or her to get used to the processes.

The characters in many fighting games have some standard tools that make all fighters more or less equal. Some games feature very basic and simple characters (Ken or Ryu in Street Fighter), while others have a more blurred concept of characters for beginners (Tekken, Soul Calibur).

The simplicity of the characters in fighting games is expressed through several factors: the ease of performing basic attacks, the size of their move list, and the number of their weaknesses. Heroes such as Kazumi, Shaheen, or Claudio from Tekken 7 allow one to play properly even without any knowledge about the game. Playing for them, users can gradually get the idea of how to use particular abilities in different situations. This knowledge can then be applied to other more complex characters.

However, fighting games sometimes have trap characters. They are simple at a glance and allow them to play well even if one presses the buttons with his or her face, but they do not give any real knowledge. Some good examples of such characters are Hwoarang and Noctis. The Korean taekwondist has been a favorite figure of lovers of "button pressing" since the days of Tekken 3 on PlayStation 1. The problem is that such gameplay uses only a part of his features: Hwoarang has a lot of stances for different situations in his arsenal of techniques. Pressing "X" and "O" mindlessly won't do any good for learning the game itself: the knowledge gained during using of this character is applicable only to one more fighter – Hwoarang's teacher Pek Tusan. The same goes for Noctis, the guest from Final Fantasy XV: his gameplay does not reflect the ones of the other characters, and the apparent simplicity evaporates after the first meeting with an opponent who knows how to make side steps.

The task of simple characters in mob games is a bit different, as their heroes are completely different, and the learned mechanics for one rarely apply to another. It's necessary to understand that the entry barrier in Dota 2, League of Legends, Smite, Heroes of the Storm is much higher than the one in fighting games. Beginners first need to understand what the heck is going on there. The perfect characters for such players are the ones that will least disturb them during this process and, preferably, help them learn the basics. It's impossible to do flawless Sun Strikes in Dota 2 or Cyblades in League of Legends. One has to come to this by understanding the basic mechanics of the game.

The most useful mob hero for beginners is probably Annie from League of Legends. Yes, she is not as easy to use as Udyr or WK from Dota, but her entire arsenal of skills and gameplay patterns contribute to learning the game. Her Q provides the right creep farm, her passive ability teaches how to use skills on time, and her incredible burst suggests the importance of harassment the enemy champion in lane. Annie is also one of those heroes who have a lot of working builds so that players will be able to find the right items without dropping the overall efficiency.

The main credit of the entry-level characters is that they do not let the newcomers feel like strangers. Of course, the best advice is "play for the hero you like best," but it's OK to start with simple heroes if something relatively complicated doesn't work out. Games are supposed to be fun in the first place, and nobody likes to die in attempts to perform some advanced trick.