How badly do you suck at balancing when you’re afraid to give characters new special moves after 7 sequels with the same shit, and just tweak the existing normal attacks while other companies do new specials and supers and manage just fine? (looking at you, capcom)
well, dont you think fans would question new specials, especially if they are replacing old ones, and wonder where the originality went? you cant give too many new moves to characters surely, like i was saying, every addition needs balancing, although i can see what you mean
I think as long as they can do something simple and cool, ESPECIALLY if they haven’t done it before, you’re good to go
I can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned yet. :V Anywho,
My bad, I know it’s aksys when I speak, but the spelling gets me for some reason.
I’d do the latter since balancing zoners and melee characters seems to be the achille’s heel of balancing from my experience. Also,
Thank you.
good link shezmu, I’ve never even seen that before
yeah another good read, thanks
Here is another page you should look at for designing a fighting game. James Goddard is a game designer who created DeeJay for Street Fighter and has written about designing fighters. Also I suggest if you can try to play Weaponlord to see a low character yet very well balanced fighter. BTW here is the link http://www.djamesgoddard.com/ Good luck.
exactly the kind of stuff i need, thanks a million Hising Tao, great find, and i will look at weaponlord soon after my presentation this monday to announce how my research is going so, this will be of great help.
Where are you doing your dissertation?
Having played fighting game for many years and generally they have in house beta testers along with public betas and use those peoples opinions to make changes.
Sometimes things are removed or added for other reasons though. Tekken 5 to 6 for example had a complete rework. 6 implemented damage proration, larger life bars, sidestepping nerfs, and added the bound system to increase juggle potential. Why did they change these things? Simply the T5 player base complained so they implemented them in T6 so people would be happy and buy their new product. T5 sidestepping annoyed every player as it led to braindead SS lifter strategies for most of the cast, everyone died in 1 or 2 combo’s because of huge combo damage so proration and more life was implemented, and they added the bound so people could do flashier juggles as Tekken has always been known for it’s flashy gameplay and customization.
This illustrates how game mechanics are changed between iterations. They are modified in a way that makes the game more enjoyable for the player base because making the player base happy enough to buy their product is the goal of game developers.
On adding characters. Generally I think game designers do this sloppily, but all they do is create an idea for a character than create a moveset based on that idea than implement it and beta test it. If the design is unfeasible (too broken, difficult to implement, or not fun) it is adjusted or terminated based on time limitations, money limitations, and beta feedback. Typically the only thing considered when adding a new character is a general power level comparison. “Oh he deals approximately the right amount of damage for whate he can do compared to the rest of the cast” Than beta testing ensue with and the idea is modified. 1st iterations are never that good because typically the beta testers lack the required time and skill the population has to push the game’s engine.
The biggest rule in a fighter in regards to balance is to remember that too much balance can make a game boring, with no real threat or excitement.
You can overbalance. Do not expect each character to be equal. There will always be tiers and it is necessary. Only balance stuff which seems glaringly over or underpowered.
at university in Suffolk, England
Do you have any sources for the T5/T6 and testing info, not that i doubt what you have said isnt right because i know it is having played both games, but if you have a link for academic purposes that would help. Also, youre right about developers trying to implement what the general public want, something I seemed to just have forgotten about, something similar to this was talked heavily about in an SFIV interview if i remember correctly. thanks for the information anyway, thinking to hard is making me forget the basics 
Now this is interesting, this is something I have not thought about at all, because i just never thought a game has ever been balanced enough, let alone overbalanced. My arguement would be why would it make it boring if a game was almost perfectly balanced? surely if every character was tournament viable then you would see more variation in fights, more potential tournament winners etc. and people (like me) who pick people they like the look of, or like the martial arts style, or think theyre hot, or whatever! can pick a character knowing theyre not crappy, but then again, there will always be tiers like you say, but this whole debate is what makes this topic interesting to talk about for my dissertation
I don’t agree with Sakura completely.
in the sense of giving everyone the same fireball, long ranged attacks, anti-air shoryuken, etc. I agree balance would be extremely boring. but if you alter each move to be different (ex. this fireball hits twice, this fireball can be held longer for more dramatic effects, this fireball can return to me, etc.), that gives it that varied balance… that is, so long as the game respects each varied move. You make it even better if you combat the things all in different ways (ex. you want to make a char less weak to fireballs. one char combats it with an anti-fireball move, another combats it with quick movements, another combats it with his own fireball, another combats it with high HP+special invulnerabilities to fireball knockdowns)
yeah i agree, of course balancing via movesets being the same, or moves not having another variety is awfully boring, but a game with as much variety as the tekkens, street fighters, blazblues of this generation with balance that makes all characters with all the different styles and skills they all have tournament viable, it would make for much better viewing,
but yeah, i wont be trying to balance my game with boring similar movesets to each other because that may be what my aim is, but then it breaks other princibles like fun and exciting gameplay, it would be just palette swap boredom
seems like megaultrasuper isnt around these days :{
I’m not a programmer or a fighting game dev. I’ve just devoted a lot of thought to the subject.
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=204211
^link to original thread discussing how hard it is to make a fighting game.
I recommend 2d fighter maker over MUGEN. Much easier to use and less buggy. It’s the same engine most doujin games are made with.
I’ll try to get on later tonight and make some comments.
in my opinion… the only way to balance a fighting game (aka only 5:5, 6:4 matchups) is to tweak move properties (damage, invulnerability, etc. - nothing too drastic that would damage the playstyle or character identity) for every matchup
X vs Y - X has some property on a special move
X vs Z - X loses some property on some special move
This part of the argument of why of all the marvel crossover games, why does Marvel Superheroes vs Street Fighter see the least play. The usual answer is overbalancing. On GGPO it is far easier to get a game going with X-Men vs Street Fighter or Marvel vs Capcom than MSvSF. The best way to think of MSvSF is as XMvSF with all the brokenness removed and better balance between the characters. It is hard to call MvC2 balanced and it still sees serious tournament play. Even X Men Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes War of the Gems see more play than MSvSF.
Players need to feel there is a chance something big and broken can happen at any time or there is no thrill in either watching or playing. People play the broken characters because they like the thrill of the big flashy reward, and people like learning the low tier characters because there is a thrill in proving you can overcome the broken stuff.
Look at SF3:Third Strike. Still sees tournament play and still one of the most popular SF games overall. The top tier characters are there rather solidly due to some really broken tools they have. Watching 3S tournie vids is fun and exciting because big stuff happens, and gets even better when we see high end play of the bottom tier characters like Twelve, Q or Necro.
So the trick isn’t to neuter busted stuff you discover in game design straight out, the real gift in balancing is to give some characters ways to handle it so that there is reward for both the players who like broken stuff and the players who like proving they are better than the broken stuff.
THIS, indefinitely
thanks for the replies, just a few quick questions, ive had a quick look and theres not alot of info about.
Is it free to use? i mean i chose mugen because i didnt know of any other programs in all honesty, and it was freeware.
Cant seem to find much on 2dfm, are there free downloads? if it requires less code that would help me alot as im a design student, not a programmer, my coding skills are pretty much zero.