I highly disagree with this. The point is to actually campaign *for* diversity. But diversity starts at the character level, not the cast level. If you have a character that's abusing 1 overpowered tool to the exclusion of all others, and there aren't robust methods for counteracting it, their gameplay becomes less diverse, not more.
if you do this right, some characters WILL have robust methods for counteracting it via their own wacky BS. you just need to put in more stuff that's as good as DBZ teleports in its own way.
this argument is essentially tantamout to one you see a lot in higher education: "well-rounded student" vs. "well-rounded class". i am a strong believer in the "well-rounded class" approach for FGs because they're more strategically linear than a lot of other competitive games anyway; virtually every good character has exactly one optimal way to play them at the highest level. MvC2 storm is about the only top-tier i can think of who defies this rule. so i like to see a bunch of characters who live off of one crazy powerful thing, as long as they're different and interesting ones. modern developers could stand to come up with a lot more moves that give you a bunch of options, that would help a lot.
When you have a slate of characters with different archetypes, that also make use of a balanced set of different tools, all kinds of possibilities unfold and the game becomes a beautiful tapestry of offensive and defensive options.
this hasn't happened with NRS games thus far, honestly. as i've said before, injustice got a terrible rep with viewers due to the blandness of its top tier both before and after the post-evo patch. that game strikes me as such wasted potential...you had some amazing designs like sinestro & zatanna, and they didn't do a whole lot in major top 8s relative to the usual suspects.
MKX is already showing similar signs. one of the people i chatted with about this whole issue said it looks to him like the top tiers in MKX play largely the same, and that sort of thing will be a MAJOR turn-off as time goes on. that is the problem with wanting well-rounded characters and nerfing unique powerful tools - the cast appears more homogenized to those not familiar with the game (see the "everybody has a fireball and a teleport" canard), and your appeal outside the core scene suffers for it. how do i know this?
look at soul calibur. that's been a very similar community to this one in terms of game design tastes, and that series has arguably the worst history as a spectator game. even SC2, usually considered the pinnacle of that franchise, was met with crickets both years it was in evo. SC2 is a very defensive, fundamentals-heavy game with the most basic-looking combos you'll ever see in a top 8...basically m2dave's dream 3D game. and guess what? the only thing i can remember popping the crowd in either of those top 8s was aris doing a mario entrance then destroying his opponent with wacky voldo stance gimmicks - that was about the only thing that broke the "turtling/spacing/poking" mold of that game. if you actually play SC2, you can appreciate the differences in the cast...but to the untrained eye, xianghua/sophie/cassie are all playing the same game. that is where the balancing philosophy you advocate can easily end up.
and SC4, i would argue, was a game badly hurt by its community even if it was never great regardless. it had the first 3D character with good fireballs, and a character who could knock you out of the ring in one combo but was supposed to give up a lot to go for this. the former was top-tier but clearly not #1, yet he was banned pretty early because he "broke the rules of the game" (hmmmmmmm). the latter became godly thanks to an exploit with the game's button binding, and guess what? this broken character garnered far bigger reactions from the evo crowd than SC2 ever did. SC4 shared a lot of 2's core game, at least on the surface, and this character was the villain it needed to add some spice to it. so of course after evo the community proceeds to ban the character instead of the button bindings that made her that insane, leaving us with the blandest possible "fundamentals" character as arguably the best. that was the end of any non-SC players ever caring about that game, and i believe not banning characters would have extended its lifespan.
I'd rather see and play against players' choices than just the overwhelmingness of a given tool. That's not diversity at all.
give me the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object any day. most viewers don't see players' choices, even if they play other games competitively. something i've realized over the years is that people want fundamentals in games they play, but just want to see a bunch of crazy shit from games they don't play.
the biggest reason i've been so interested in NRS is that they're willing to run with a lot of unique character design concepts that would scare off almost any japanese developer. i already mentioned a couple examples from injustice, but there's also the likes of sun/blood god kotal, spectral ermac, drone/demo sonya, et al. heck, i'd even consider fisticuffs cage an example since people are afraid of making characters who look that "spammy". however, i am starting to get fed up with how weak these characters usually tend to be and how boring the top characters are. i truly believe this problem is in part a function of the balancing philosophy, though obviously a lot of it is NRS not having a ton of experience and testing new stuff so much. we've seen how this community reacts to ~breaking the rules of the game~, and that is going to hurt characters who break the mold.
