Is it possible to have a perfectly balanced fighter?

BatmanBeatsCap said:

I say I'm new to fighting games, but it's actually just a long long gap. I did use to play Tekken when the PS1 came out and in arcades. I was shitty, but in trying to get good, characters were never a discussion. We chose the characters we liked for whatever reasons, and practiced with them.

That's how it should be IMO. There is no point in introducing a character and putting the work into design and such if the character is never played because they are weak. EVERY character should be viable if possible, at least that makes sense to me.

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Yup. It is hard though and there are very very few games that actually get it right with the majority of the cast.

Its easy.. Have one character.

Yes, look at the tekken and virtua fighter series.

ando1184 said:

Yes, look at the tekken and virtua fighter series.

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Tekken and VF keep coming up and I think that says a lot about the general design of both of these games. The mechanics and style of the system don't favor one character over the other. To truly use anyone you have to take full advantage of the tools the game gives to everyone. IMO, that's the best way to balance a game. Design the base game to cover multiple aspects so you can create varied playstyles and characters.

Not in an NRS fighting game there won't. But hey, there's loads of DLC to be had, whooppppeee.

buyacushun said:

Tekken and VF keep coming up and I think that says a lot about the general design of both of these games. The mechanics and style of the system don't favor one character over the other. To truly use anyone you have to take full advantage of the tools the game gives to everyone. IMO, that's the best way to balance a game. Design the base game to cover multiple aspects so you can create varied playstyles and characters.

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They are also 3D games which add a certain sense of balance because like Saltshaker (I think) said, everyone can side step, wave dash, etc.

Zoidberg747 said:

They are also 3D games which add a certain sense of balance because like Saltshaker (I think) said, everyone can side step, wave dash, etc.

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Yeah which is what I meant by "systems". But you can have similar things in 2D , just gotta be creative. Blazblue's and other anime games have a nice deep blocking system. SF Alpha and now SFV has alpha counters, 3S had parries. KoF has blowbacks and rolls. Not all of these are perfect heck I'm sure an argument can be made that none of these are. But the point is there are definitely ways to even the playing field in 2D and 3D without ever touching a character.

Oh and I said that everyone can sidestep and such when I mentioned Tekken. (probably first )

buyacushun said:

3S had parries.

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Oh you don't want to ever mention that game and balance in the same convo lol.

In the case of MKX, it would help if NRS didn't go back to square one every game.

Way harder to balance things when you go "tabula rasa" every iteration, and make matters worse by patching things every week, shifting tier lists so many times that people tend to drop their main from a week to another . . .

SaltShaker said:

Oh you don't want to ever mention that game and balance in the same convo lol.

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Not touching that one lol. Just that implementing parries is an interesting idea to change up how a 2D fighter players. That there are a bunch of parameters you could play with to make a different game.

Possible, yes. Will it ever happen? No. Characters don't have to be the same, they just have to equal amount of flaws and different holes in their game. As a competitive player of multiple different games across many genres, the closest anyone has ever come to balancing asymmetrical gameplay, is Starcraft - and they will always keep fighting to improve it. "Perfect" balance feels like an oxymoron as a sense, just like the skillcap of our games, you can never QUITE perfect it, there is always something you can be doing beter

buyacushun said:

Not touching that one lol. Just that implementing parries is an interesting idea to change up how a 2D fighter players. That there are a bunch of parameters you could play with to make a different game.

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Yea the 3rd Strike parry was my #1 thing that ever happened in the entire franchise. Nothing was more hype than parrying hits on a read or reaction and parrying projectiles.


I played Chun-Li though shamelessly. -.-

Nope.

The real question to me is MKX awesome or is MKX super-awesome...

The answer is neither because its just purely spectacular in both an awesome and super-awesome kind of way.

isn't a part of tekken's balance having to do with the legacy build? I can't help but think if NRS kept a consistency in their gameplay from game to game instead of trying to reinvent it every time we might get a bit better balance each time

juicepouch said:

isn't a part of tekken's balance having to do with the legacy build? I can't help but think if NRS kept a consistency in their gameplay from game to game instead of trying to reinvent it every time we might get a bit better balance each time

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Yes and no.

A decade of MU exp only slightly changing definitely helps lol, but some MU's have stayed what they are as well if they're tough. Where I think it helped the balance is that you have a similar game for so long, all those tweaks and changes eventually led to the balance they have today.

T4- Lol @ Balance.
T5- Not balanced.
T5 DR- Incredibly balanced.
T6- Step in the wrong direction
T6 BR- Close to godlike balance.
TTT2- Godlike Balance.

It was rough early on but from T5 the game was so similar that fixing characters and balancing the game was an "over time" deal that worked out in the end.

SaltShaker said:

Yea the 3rd Strike parry was my #1 thing that ever happened in the entire franchise. Nothing was more hype than parrying hits on a read or reaction and parrying projectiles.


I played Chun-Li though shamelessly. -.-

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Nothing felt more satisfying than just eating hits with Q using the parry.


I honestly don't get why they didn't bring them back for 5 except for with Ryu only.

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juicepouch said:

isn't a part of tekken's balance having to do with the legacy build? I can't help but think if NRS kept a consistency in their gameplay from game to game instead of trying to reinvent it every time we might get a bit better balance each time

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I've been saying this since MKX dropped.

This MK or the next needs to be their stopping point for a while in terms of returning character's core move sets. Tweak and add things, but no more complete overhauls. This allows them to carry the level of balance of the previous game(s) over to the next whilst improving it until they gradually reach something optimal. This allows gives them more time and resources to spend on actual new characters and other things like stages or a more detailed story mode and other things.


There are more upsides to building up than there are to reconstructing.

yea look at tekken. probably one of the best all around fighters out WITH a good net code for online lol all of there testing and what not are done in the arcades. patches are done before they hit consoles so when it comes out the games practically flawless

I like NRS and MKX is balanced enough for me to enjoy it. Also would like to say Tekken these days is extremely balanced, but i like how NRS goes outside the box, mixes it up a lot, and they have gotten better at patching. I'm someone who doesn't have overwhelmingly bad opinions on how MKX turned out. I happen to like using Cassie, Predator, Liu Kang, Jax, Ermac, Jacki, Shinnok, Tremor though, so who gives a shit right?

Nah its not possible to have a perfectly balanced fighting game. On another note some of the most fun(IMO) fighting games are unbalanced like SSF2 Turbo, and CvS2. Supposedly Hokuto no Ken is supposed to be shit tons of fun and that game is so broken since everyone has 100%s and other crazy stuff.

"tekken & VF are the most balanced games ever!!!" really means "i don't have experience with tekken or VF at a high level"

there's still fucked-up matchups etc., they just happen in a much more subtle way that you can't really notice on video without knowing the game. frame data minutiae and a character's sidestepping ability are things that can create 6/4 or worse matchups, which is a far cry from "Dude throws fireballs and Homeboy has no way to get in". since these kinds of games are so tightly designed, it takes a lot less for something to break that design. having a 12f jab vs. an 8f jab can be the kiss of death, and there's no way non-players would pick up on that sort of thing.

those series also had mechanical changes over the years that old-schoolers rage about, no different from anything else. people who came from the original tekken tag tend to hate bound and the very existence of walls, as they create somewhat MKX-style corner situations. VF5 added 0-frame throws, and i've known of top VF4 players who had meltdowns over that.

finally, although there are nice subtle differences in playstyle, the reality is that 3D fighters have far less variety in the core strategies of the characters. there's much less of a reason to use mid-low tier when they play a lot like the top characters. think of elena in 3rd strike: totally mid-tier, yet you see more Q & hugo in tournament because they have unique stuff while she's just a crappier chun-li. hell, old ken is legit upper-mid in super turbo but gets no love because you might as well play ryu instead. 3D fighters are much more prone to this phenomenon, though i would also put KOF up there in that regard. in a way, i think this makes up for the inherent balance deficiencies of 2D fighters vs. 3D; most 2D games have a lot more lower-tier characters that appeal to someone in a special way. you can see that with all the dedicated low-tier warriors in japan for any fighter that lasts...

also yes, people are spot on when they say there's a tradeoff between balance/variety/"fun factor"

my opinions on that are probably well-known by this point. i'll just reiterate that history has shown balance to be the least important of those factors for appealing to spectators - should i drag out my example of soul calibur 2 vs. 4 again? SF4 would be the main exception to that statement, but i would argue that game was carried by the combination of SF's name value with the casual audience (something MK arguably has even more of) and historical cred with the hardcores (something MK had the polar opposite of before 9, and is only beginning to build up now).

i also think that on the whole, players want balance much less than they think they do, since they tend to forget about these tradeoffs. again, i've posted about this before, but "honest" "back to basics" FGs tend to get ignored or outright shit on when they do happen.

BatmanBeatsCap said:

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible to have a perfectly balanced fighter.

I may be wrong, but ti seems the things that determine tiers are the variety of moves the character has (ability to get out of zoning, ability to get out of corner, good wakeups etc) and the frame data for those moves.

Essentially, this comes down to math, and balancing the matrix of characters (although balancing a matrix means something entirely different to how I am using).

With careful design, a long period of testing and input from the community, would it be possible to have a perfectly balanced fighter, or can such a thing never be?

I am very interested in this topic as I think it is an interesting problem to try and solve. On top of that, I am a semi-decent programming looking for a fun project I can work on, and with game development being easier than ever I am seriously thinking about creating a fighting game.

I would really love input from anyone who has anything to say on the matter.

Thank you.

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YES IT CAN.

Don't listen to those speaking about clones. It's all in the numbers. Everyone can be unique in function and properties. The balance is controlled with frame data and if needed with hitbox adjustments

BatmanBeatsCap said:

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be possible to have a perfectly balanced fighter.

I may be wrong, but ti seems the things that determine tiers are the variety of moves the character has (ability to get out of zoning, ability to get out of corner, good wakeups etc) and the frame data for those moves.

Essentially, this comes down to math, and balancing the matrix of characters (although balancing a matrix means something entirely different to how I am using).

With careful design, a long period of testing and input from the community, would it be possible to have a perfectly balanced fighter, or can such a thing never be?

I am very interested in this topic as I think it is an interesting problem to try and solve. On top of that, I am a semi-decent programming looking for a fun project I can work on, and with game development being easier than ever I am seriously thinking about creating a fighting game.

I would really love input from anyone who has anything to say on the matter.

Thank you.

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Yes you can do it. I have confidence in you. You might not get it right on the first try due to bugs, glitches, and other unexpected things, but I'm sure it could fixed after a few patches. Like you said, it's mathematical. There shouldn't be a character that excels in zoning and mixups like Quan Chi and etc. If you believe you can do it go for it man. Prove the doubters wrong. It can turn into something big. I encourage you!

balanced 3d fighter, yes
2d fighter no