A question about good and bad characters

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

Hello everyone,

I’m new to SRK but not to fighting games. I wouldn’t call myself an expert by any stretch, though I’ve started with the very first few and watched the genre evolve into what it is today, casually picking up and having some fun with one episode of a series or another. I’ve always wondered about something though, and not until recently have I actually decided to ask people more qualified than I am, about this.

I do not mean to step on any toes, do mind! I’m not intending to go into debates about which character is good or bad, (and please, for the love of God, nobody do!) and not looking to justify winning or losing in any particular game. There is simply a phenomenon - a design choice - which has been bothering me since the very first moment when I realized that certain characters are worse and some are better.

Yes, this phenomenon is the tier list debacle. I figured I’d register here and ask, because this is where all the best players go to chat, I believe.

Back when games were sold as a finished product it was a simple matter of characters having been made that way. They turned out weaker for one reason or another and that’s the way it had to be. We picked the stronger, or learned to adapt.

However, in the age of high speed internet and evolving game meta in all genres, it does get me wondering why some game creators (can’t speak for all of them) feel it necessary to have “bad” or “weak” characters in their games, instead of working towards making them all viable? Some games have a giant roster and I can only wonder why all but the top 5 even exist…

Look at games like MOBAs, or CO-OP games, (don’t want to put titles, not sure if that would be okay) they get overhauled, some of them more often than others, getting rid of balance issues and broken mechanics by the minute. And then we have fighting games where the community will complain about this or that and the game’s developers seem to just not really care.

What’s the deal?

2

Many current fighting games are re-balanced periodically, however it’s not that easy to make sure everything is exactly balanced, especially when what makes fighting games cool is how different all the characters are. when you have very different designs and have them all interacting with each other, it’s more likely than not that some characters will have tools that just don’t match up well.

Also there is a good portion of the community who don’t want balance changes. they would rather you release a game, only fix a couple of egregious things (like easily confirmed infinites, or game breaking glitches) and then just let the game sort itself out. the competitive balance in the first year of a game’s life will probably look a lot different than the balance five years in, and choices you made in year 1 to tone down things you thought were too good may turn out to have not been needed at all.

there’s also the time investment issue from the player POV - it’s not that much fun to invest time in learning a character, figuring out really cool stuff they can do, then after you showcase it the company decides it’s too strong and removes or nerfs it. they’ve pretty much invalidated your time spent learning the game. sometimes when this happens to a top player it almost looks like the character is getting punished for that player being too good. “X player won Evo, now we need to nerf his character because it’s clearly too strong.”

3

Holy shit man, read the rules. Also, Newbie Saykio Dojo.

4

It’s not that simple. I don’t believe any of these developers are aiming to have bad characters in there game (Dan being the exception). It’s just really difficult to know for sure which characters are good or bad. Sometimes it takes a couple of years (or more) for a character to shine. And even then once you go in and change things, your changes may have effects you don’t intend.

5

Asymetrical design bro, some hours be set the bottom.