I made this thread to hear what people think about current gen fighting games. Before if there was a character people thought was “cheap” people would shut up and grind through it nowadays if people have a problem with one character they cry balance patch with mixed results. I just want to hear what people think.
People want “easy mode” and don’t want to have to work against bad matchups. Heck, some scrubs actually think that you shouldn’t have to learn character specific matchups.
Balance is important, but it should be balanced around a spiderweb instead of a ladder. Characters would mostly have 5/5 matchups, but some matchups would either be easier or harder depending on who they are against. So a little imbalance is ok as long as it’s character specific. It promotes “counterpicking”, and thus there is never one character that can completely dominate. I feel that balanced system mechanics and variety in playstyles are more important, because characters who are weaker than others can easily get some small buffs.
add to that, that its possible to have a perfect 5:5 matchup that at beginner level it can be seen as an uphill battle, just see all the scrubs that really believe that Tager on BB is broken and needs to be nerfed just because they suck hard that doesnt know how to fight him
Agreed. Stuff like Chun vs Vega in ST is 5:5, but only if Chun doesn’t get knocked down. Vega is good at killing scrubs. 
People actually say tager is broken? now THAT is the sign of a true scrub lol
This is true. I played makoto in Super sf and she is arguably the worst character, BUT even if they didn’t buff her I still would have sucked it up and kept playing her without crying “balance patch”. People are ALREADY crying to patch BB and the twins in AE. Im starting to wonder if companies now cater to scrubs or people who don’t want to learn to play fighting games and be good at them.
It’s like the word balance was introduced in 09.
No question.
There’s definitely a lot of mechanics built within SFIV to help Scrubs along. (Hell, even Ono was mashing out SRK when he was demoing SF x Tekken on PS Vita at Sony’s E3 conference)
But, much like low tier champs drive through with their character regardless of Tier placement, I suck up the scrub-friendliness of most newer games and try to enjoy them for what they are.
Balance is a fine goal but most people’s balance complaints are complete nonsense, and most companies suck at balancing their games. First they listen to people they shouldn’t be listening to, then they make the worst changes possible.
which is why balance should be handled by top players rather than capcom itself or scrubs on srk\capcomunity. I think the biggest example of failed balance is capcom listening about the sentinel complaints from scrubs. Sentinel is probably a middle of the pack character and they nerfed him? yet dark phoenix gets to remain the same when she was obviously overpowered? only took 2 minutes for any good player to realize she was the best in the game.
Capcom can’t balance SHIT and anyone who has been around long enough knows that… Capcom probably has 12+ tournament level fighting games that are so unbelievably unbalanced, its a miracle they made it out of the testing phases. They really don’t know what balance is, otherwise why so many HORRIBLE attempts?
balance is fine and it helps the game, they just need to stop listening to their scrub forum aka capcomunity and some of the retards that post on srk.
Balance is overrated.
As far as patching to fix balance, thats a toughie. Lots of older games would not have developed as they did if they were patched as they developed, for better or worse. You’ll never really know what modern games would have turned out to be without patching.
Edit:
I think its pretty obvious that Capcom doesn’t strive for perfect balance and willfully makes certain characters strong/weak
People want balance because it can be done. It’s not like you have to wait for another version of the game to drop in the arcades in the next year with a few more characters. The oldschool don’t agree with any balance changes. Just as they don’t agree with Parries and such.
Im split my problem is that people complain because they want an easy win without having to work. I think people should ask for balance patches after the game is at least out a year or so just so people have time to figure it out.
Ive been wondering about this, its no doubt that time is needed for a game to be fleshed out, how ever the length needed is justified by the scene imo. A game defiantly doesn’t need a year to find out everything. I think the only reason things take the amount of time they usually take is because good portion of a scene will “band wagon” after a minimal experience and not continue to explore things after a trend has started.
I don’t mind balance as long as it’s towards the top, meaning buffs to all the weak chars to make them stronger. That kind of balance is fun.
Diversity>>>>>>>>>>>>Balance
Someone in another thread mentioned that the American and Japan ideas of balance are different.
American balance = idealistic 5:5 matchups for all
Japanese balance = a combination of strong characters, mediocre characters and weak characters
im sorry but even if the japanese way is a cultural thing i still think its absolutely stupid! a fighting game should NEVER have or come across as having throwaway characters or characters simply made to pad out rosters. now there will ALWAYS be tiers but at the very least everyone should be able to compete in some capacity should you learn the character properly and his or her matchups. its something ive said in another balance thread and i firmly believe it to be true. they dont have to be 5:5’s but your character should never be worse than a 3 in any matchup.
If that character’s ability is that bad for another character to deal with, why is it a problem? You can learn another character to deal with your main’s bad matchups or try to deal with it the best you can. Don’t blame it on the company, it’s just the character YOU want to play has a hard time vs another.