Kristoph Posted August 21, 2010 Posted August 21, 2010 The game is perfectly balanced, per-se, but the only two playable characters are perfectly identical. That is the only way you're ever going to achieve perfect balance in a fighting game. Okay, practically speaking, you are not going to get a fighting game with nothing but absolutely perfect, 5:5 matchups, unless all of the characters are identical. This is kind of completely obvious, and only really exists for hypothetical purposes in the first place, making it completely pointless to talk about at all. As such I gave Spirit Juice enough credit to assume that it wasn't the point he was trying to make. Instead I assumed that he was making a point with some actual implications on the meaning of balance in competitive games. In other words, I took his argument as saying that "when you make an imbalanced fighting game balanced, it makes the game less interesting just by virtue of the fact that it is more balanced." I hear this sort of thing all the time, and there are plenty of people who are literally under the impression that imbalance is sometimes a positive force, even when it has no real impact on diversity or depth or whatever else. Asking for perfect balance is just fucking stupid.No it isn't, in the same sense that asking for world peace is not 'fucking stupid.' Nobody actually expects it to occur, but it is still strictly superior to its alternatives.
Afrikaan Posted August 21, 2010 Posted August 21, 2010 Okay, practically speaking, you are not going to get a fighting game with nothing but absolutely perfect, 5:5 matchups, unless all of the characters are identical. This is kind of completely obvious, and only really exists for hypothetical purposes in the first place, making it completely pointless to talk about at all. As such I gave Spirit Juice enough credit to assume that it wasn't the point he was trying to make. Instead I assumed that he was making a point with some actual implications on the meaning of balance in competitive games. In other words, I took his argument as saying that "when you make an imbalanced fighting game balanced, it makes the game less interesting just by virtue of the fact that it is more balanced." I hear this sort of thing all the time, and there are plenty of people who are literally under the impression that imbalance is sometimes a positive force, even when it has no real impact on diversity or depth or whatever else. No it isn't, in the same sense that asking for world peace is not 'fucking stupid.' Nobody actually expects it to occur, but it is still strictly superior to its alternatives. I'll actually agree with you in the facet of imbalance being directy correlated to how interesting or fun a game is. That is a valid point. However, I still stand by the fact that it is immensely silly to develop around the goal of perfect balance. You'd have to spend so much dev time on trying to attain something that may not even be attainable in the first place and sacrificing all the other important facets of a fighter. The game in the long run wouldn't even be worth playing in the long run. Want an example? Virtua Fighter. EDIT:Call me sadistic, but world peace would be a bad thing in the long run. As cruel as it sounds, war does help stabilize the population and in some cases can spark dying economies in countries. That's the only good thing that comes from it, but it's still a huge factor.
whitevoid Posted August 21, 2010 Posted August 21, 2010 No fighting game will ever be perfectly balanced. If it were, it'd be boring. That's not necessarily true. There are many games designed to be mirrors, but it's the player's skills and propensities that define how it plays out rather than structured differences between both sides. You could do it in a fighting game and still make it interesting, but you'd have to develop the move set many times over so that player style would overcome design. I mean, in real life two human beings have essentially "the same movelist" but can fight dramatically different. Fighting games could have gone this route, but it would probably be far too complex to every catch out compared to a FPS where it's more intuitive.
Kristoph Posted August 21, 2010 Posted August 21, 2010 Populations tend to stabilize themselves with stuff like disease and famine anyway. don't have anything to say about the actual game-related stuff since I pretty much agree with you there lol. I agree that, practically speaking, 'perfect balance' should never be considered a feasible end result. What developers can take away from my stance is that if they can ever improve the balance of a game, they should, as long as it doesn't take up too many resources or interfere in other aspects of the game like diversity. "Balance" in and of itself is strictly a good thing.
Afrikaan Posted August 21, 2010 Posted August 21, 2010 Populations tend to stabilize themselves with stuff like disease and famine anyway. don't have anything to say about the actual game-related stuff since I pretty much agree with you there lol. I agree that, practically speaking, 'perfect balance' should never be considered a feasible end result. What developers can take away from my stance is that if they can ever improve the balance of a game, they should, as long as it doesn't take up too many resources or interfere in other aspects of the game like diversity. "Balance" in and of itself is strictly a good thing. The moral of this story is. Virtua Fighter sucks.
powerincarnate Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 The moral of this story is. Virtua Fighter sucks. I disagree that VF sucks, it is one of the best fighting game series around and consistently has better reviews than guilty gear. I also disagree that interestingness correlate with lack of balance. take the comments on Shoryuken.com about MK vs. DC and all of the lack on balance in that game, is it interesting NO. VF isn't interesting to 2D people because most are used to the very fast gameplay of 2D games, so VF is the antithesis of that, hence the usual 2D vs. 3D comments back in the day. Also, for casuals, VF simply is dull, while take a look at the trailers of MvC3 with all the energy blast, the colors, the light shows, the wolverine, spidermans, hulk, chun li, ryu and other interesting people and tell me what do you think they will chose. Sales isn't everything though, take a look at the millions MK5, 6, 7 and even the vs. DC did and compare them to Tekken 4, 5, 5r, 6 and Virtua fighter 4, evo, 5, 360 version of 5. Street fighter sold well because it was released to a mature platform and on platforms at the same time. It also was prepped by Soul Calibur 4 a half year before, and HD remix a few months before. Virtua Figher on the other hand was released literally 3 months into the $600 PS3's lifespan. Also, it is street fighter, it is the mario bros of fighting game. I'm not sure if fighting games were in a slump not because STreet Fighter wasn't being released. For example, people got tired of Street Fighter 2 version 36 (joking)after a while. And No one cares about fighting game stories as a reason to not include fighters in your game, hence the idiotic decision capcom made to not include popular fighters in Street Fighter 3. Seth Killian and Ono and other executives always mentioned time and time again that they've learned their lesson from Street Fighter III. Also I remember asking something on VF.com about why did they have Akira's knee input kick and guard with release of guard within 1 frame. That kind of stuff just turns casuals away, and this is bad for a game that already has problems attracting casuals due to its barrier to entry, the perceived difficultness of it, the perceived stiffness of it, plus the lack of flash and interesting characters and storyline to make the characters interesting doesn't help as I mentioned above. They would often respond either A. We hardcore people like the challenge, or B. We don't mess up on it that much, we can do it 100% of the time or close to it, just practive more. Also There is a huge lack of advertising and marketing on Sega's part. A problem they often displayed in the Genesis and Saturn Days, and continue to display ( I still love valkyria chronicles and like no one knows about it). You know who else has this problem, Nokia in the US. I have an n900 and had a n97, but in the US you can't sell unlock phones at 600 bucks and think it will sell. you have to get in bed with a carrier or two and you have to market it, think of all the (an)droid and iphone commercials. Now think of all the 0 top of the line nokia phone commercials. Get the drift. With that said and back to topic, Fighters should strive to be balance, and striving to be balance and making all same fighters are two completely different things. Super Street Fighter IV actually did a descent job balancing. Capcom still stiffed the non original 17 arcade characters, and a few bad people remained bad in super and I don't forgive them for that, but in the tournaments, you have a group of many viable characters and that is pretty good when you have 35 characters. Blazblue in the half a year patch should slightly tweak the top 2 or 3 down, improvely greatly on rachel, tsubaki and tager (will a fighting game ever give big guys respect and make them top tier (zangief got nerfed hard, though Vangief had a good run at Evo)) and maybe slightly tweak the middle and we'll be good.
jimmy Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 I disagree that VF sucks, it is one of the best fighting game series around and consistently has better reviews than guilty gear. lol according to reviewers ssf4 is the best fighting game ever, didn't read after this first sentence
mundus Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 Also sales mean nothing for fighting games, hell VF5 has sold more than BB. Also look at Melty Blood, its arguably better than most fighting games and it sells like some indie game (yeah i know it is technically an indie game but still).
powerincarnate Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 Also sales mean nothing for fighting games, hell VF5 has sold more than BB. Also look at Melty Blood, its arguably better than most fighting games and it sells like some indie game (yeah i know it is technically an indie game but still). I wrote a lot, but I'm pretty sure that is one of my points, which was that MK 5-8 sold a lot, but they suck, VF5 sold like crap and it sold LESS than Blazblue just for correction purposes (at least calamity trigger, not sure about CS since it is still new). And no I don't think reviews automatically mean X game is better than Y game, SSF4 also wasn't best reviewed, that would be Soul CAlibur followed by Tekken 3. However, I do think reviews have a place, a game getting in the 60s vs. a game getting in the 90s aren't the same regardless of situations. Games in the high 70s 80s and 90s can be off due to popularity, publisher payments (after the gamespot incident, I wouldn't be surprise), reviewer's taste, reviewer's lack of knowledge in what he is reviewing, hype (like the GTAs being way up there is scores) and so forth.
Dacidbro Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 It has occurred that a game undeserving of a high/low rating has received the undeserved rating.. ratings are rarely a great way to determine a game's playability, especially with fighters, which tend to aim for a niche that is often unrepresented in rating.
powerincarnate Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 It has occurred that a game undeserving of a high/low rating has received the undeserved rating.. ratings are rarely a great way to determine a game's playability, especially with fighters, which tend to aim for a niche that is often unrepresented in rating. As I said, up to a point, I agree, afterwards I don't. MK 5-8 averaged in the low 80s but so did Tekken 5 and 6, are they similar in levels? Hell no. I'm not sitting here trying to pump up ratings. With that said, I'm not even sure I like the term "niche" Street Fighter 2 wasn't niche. Fighters became niche, because they stopped appealing to as many people as possible and they kept rereleasing tweaks of the same thing (think SFII and guilty gear). RPGs both western and japanese, FPS and a couple of other genres have proven that something can go from niche to mass in a short period of time. With the sales of SFIV and super, and the times we are in, you could argue fighters are back to being semi for the masses again. I think we've veered off from the point of this thread. I actually would rather go back talking about the matchups and tiers. I got a bit excited after seeing people bash VF over and over again as if that game was bad when it is easily one of the top 3 fighting game series around (from a pure skill, fun, hardcore point of view). So it doesn't appeal to the mass, but We here should be the last folks to knock them on that because guilty gear and blazblue doesn't either.
smooshman Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 this is a matchup chart thread. so discuss matchups BS Jin matchups I pulled out of my ass(jin:other) Terrible LI 3.5-4:6.5-6 RG 4:6 BA 4-4.5:6-5.5 HK 4.5:5.5 HZ, CA, LA, TO, AR 5:5 NO, TS 5.5:4.5 TG, RA 6:4 good now back on topic.
smooshman Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 ^ What about Makoto? as of now? until something changes, 5.5-6:4.5-4 Jin's favor.
OmniSScythe Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 as of now? until something changes, 5.5-6:4.5-4 Jin's favor. As one Jin player to another, Jin doesn't really any advantage in that match up.
smooshman Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 As one Jin player to another, Jin doesn't really any advantage in that match up. you mean besides range, approach, his ability to zone her (the only character he really can), air game? only thing she really has over him damage and pressure.
seyu Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 that sounds kinda unreasonable. first there is no reason why jin could zone makoto. sehs got her parry, 3C which goes under all ground projectiles and her own projectile, which can beat out jins. his range may be better, but everyones range is better then makotos. in the air jins got an advantage with his jC, makoto has an aerial DP though from which she can combo after CH. some of her approaches are hardly usable gainst jins DPs, but the ones she has on the ground can be used like agains everybidy else.
smooshman Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 that sounds kinda unreasonable. first there is no reason why jin could zone makoto. sehs got her parry, 3C which goes under all ground projectiles and her own projectile, which can beat out jins. his range may be better, but everyones range is better then makotos. in the air jins got an advantage with his jC, makoto has an aerial DP though from which she can combo after CH. some of her approaches are hardly usable gainst jins DPs, but the ones she has on the ground can be used like agains everybidy else. 3C doesn't go under J236A/B. an aerial DP=/= air-air combat. in fact that would be a terrible idea. her approach is still gimmicky, unless you just try to run up, then you get a 5B or 5C. sure when she gets in she's a bitch to get out, but the advantage to jin is that he can keep her out, one of the few characters he beats at many ranges (only loses at point blank, and even then 2A and 5B are effective)
seyu Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 3C doesn't go under J236A/B. i wrote ground projectiles. an aerial DP=/= air-air combat. in fact that would be a terrible idea. of course you rather use it on reaction against jCs. the reast can be beaten with makotos jB which is actually a pretty good air to air, the hitbox is just weird. also im not quite sure, but i think makotos 2A is faster, but dont quote me on that
OmniSScythe Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 you mean besides range, approach, his ability to zone her (the only character he really can), air game? only thing she really has over him damage and pressure. Her 6A shuts down all of his air normals, 214C into barrier is a free in to close or at least mid-range against all zoners and her 2A is fast enough to beat out most of his ground normals. She doesn't actually have to go into air to air though at close range if she's lower then him then j.B beats out all of his but j.A which usually will end up in her favor due to hit stun. Basically this match up ends up with who gets who cornered first since Jin's max range 6D is really good against her range.
smooshman Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 i wrote ground projectiles. of course you rather use it on reaction against jCs. the reast can be beaten with makotos jB which is actually a pretty good air to air, the hitbox is just weird. also im not quite sure, but i think makotos 2A is faster, but dont quote me on that my mistake and when I said air game I meant air to air, sorry if that wasn't clear. it's very strange to fight makoto as Jin, her movement and overall style is wierd. it is mostly a battle of momentum, I say Makoto is at a slight disadvantage because her neurtal game isn't as good as jin's, but she beats him at close range, and 3C goes under most of Jin's stuff (which is really annoying), and at mid range.... it's a guessing game. however she's fairly recent and things could change.
OmniSScythe Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 Fun fact, Jin's 3C beats her 2A clean, I'll shed some light on the match up more in the Jin vs Makoto thread later.
smooshman Posted August 22, 2010 Posted August 22, 2010 i think bang vs jin is 6.5 in bang's favor it's bad, but it doesn't feel as bad as Ragna. it's annoying thing.... "hey how about I air dash and throw nails at you and then air dash awalolololololol".... so dumb, have to catch, and then hope he doesn't use any of his DD's (since they're all reversals....) and then deal with his pressure and mixup, but really you it's just a mario vs a lightning bruiser, you're at an obvious disadvantage, but just a little. whereas Ranga rapes my nuetral game and offense game, and Litchi's Litchi and fucks all my shit up.
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