There are 15 characters in SF4 that play differently and I swear people use “clone” too liberally. The last time Ryu had a clone was in 1991. If you want to label yourself a fool by claiming Sakura or Dan plays any more similar to Ryu than Honda does to Blanka, go right on.
KOF2002UM says no. Great balance with 50+ characters.
Too many choices is just as bad as not having enough.
I actually think data mining the game would be really cool. Using that for anything resembling frequent balance changes would be significantly less cool. I also realized that the more I thought about this question the more it was that yes, to me, there is a sweet spot for number of characters (~20-25) but that more is fine. That said I think where games go awry is when there are too many characters added between versions of a game. 4-5 new characters per version of the game seems to be what works. More than that and things, even if you started with a fairly robust roster, start to feel cluttered.
Ok my Ryu example was bad, but do you wanna tell me that Oni and Ken play that fucking differently?
Both mixup heavy rushdown characters with a shitty fireball.
I’m pretty new into SSF4 but honestly I bet there’s a ton of superfluous characters that play way too alike and I feel it makes the entry into the series unnecessarily hard, since even the characters that are very similar to each other in terms of playstyle, still have tons of shit you’ve got to learn about them.
On top of that none of the characters except for a few are really terrible and you see all of them in tournaments.
Gooby pls 38 matchups and 43 with ultra.
Is that shit really necessary?
Yes. That’s exactly the problem of the Tekken franchise and the reason it continues to struggle to get new players into the game. It’s arguable the same game since Tekken 3, but just got bloated more and more with more and more moves and more and more characters. That’s why I like Tekken 4 so much, it was slick and compressed.
Best starting roster of a 1on1 fighter is up to 20 to 30 max imo for a reoccurring franchise. I like SSF4, AE, v14 etc add ons, that come with major balance patches. Keeps the game fresh. Not a fan of DLC characters per se tho like Injustice and MK.
It’s kind of moot that from a business perspective using lots of popular characters is a good idea. That’s the whole reason crossover games exist.
I wouldn’t touch Tekken with a 10 foot pole at this point for the reasons zUkUu mentioned, and I think its a really cool game.
I think too many characters can be problem if they’re not diverse enough, but if that’s the thing they have to do to sell the game it can’t be helped. I just hope the game itself will have fun mechanics and solid gameplay.
I’m not the one to complain about getting lots of options. The more the better I say. I see a KoF2002UM size cast and smile.
Yes.
I think that the more characters that you add to a game, the more likely the game will become unbalanced. I mean look at MvC2. How many characters are used in high level play? Like 7 tops?
Storm
Sent
Magneto
Cable
Iron Man
Strider Hiryu
Cyclops
Psylocke
Commando
Doom
Spiral
2 people use Blackheart but we wont count him
but its not even about the characters its about the teams
MSP
Thrax
Matrix
Scrub
Cable sent cyke
Row
combofiend
clockwork
then you get into shit like cable storm cyke with storm on vertical typhoon assist and shit.
for a game with a small top tier the differences and nuances between teams is incredibly large
This kind of ties into a lot of larger problems I see facing this genre and its community of players. It’s grazes the spectrum - from profitability, to competitive validity, to casual consumer interest - so sorry if this seems a bit scatter-brained.
To answer your question - I absolutely believe they do. Just don’t expect many people on a forum like this to see the merit in your suggestion. I’ve argued fighting games are generally bloated for years - not just in terms of characters. Quality FGs get better as they age, because once the mechanics get figured out and the gameplay gets refined via the community employing the best characters/tactics/strategies with higher frequencies - the game pares down to something more quantifiable, allowing measured approaches and metagame to flourish. That’s when the game is most interesting in a purely competitive sense.
A game like UMVC3, i.e., is simply too large and volatile for many to appreciate it - but the game is undeniably better as a competitive game now than it was two years ago when the amount of teams and strategies in a tournament pool were highly volatile and all viable. You could go to a tournament and get blown up by any combination of 3 characters/assists you hadn’t seen before simply because you couldn’t imagine preparing for Tron/Thor/Doom and every player was experimenting with the game’s obscene variety. Not to mention the game is mechanically dense, adding even more variety.
Now, going to a tournament, you KNOW you have to be ready for Doom/Missiles, Morrigan/Doom shell, Magnus/Doom shell, Doom TAC infinite, Phoenix anchor, Strider anchor, Vergil anchor etc. etc. You KNOW exactly what your team, strategies and tactics should be able to handle and it focuses the development of YOUR team, strategies and tactics. But it took 2+ years to get to this point (and we’re still getting there) and a lot of people got discouraged along the way during this process of refinement, with the false notion that a good competitive game should allow any combination of tactics/strategies/characters to flourish.
What’s the point? I truly believe fighting game developers should consider releasing smaller games (less characters, less bloated with mechanics) that are cheaper to develop, but tighter in terms of gameplay balance, allowing them to release newer games, at higher frequencies, without the base feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the games and variety of releases. The faster a game can be broken down - the faster it becomes truly competitive. The games could be digested by general consumers more quickly, allowing them to feel more comfortable in moving on to something new or the next iteration in your franchise without feeling like they’re getting taken for a ride (of course, pricing is relevant here, too). Competitive players get a better experience out of the gate and casual consumers get their quick fix satisfied. UMvC3, i.e., is simply too large a game to even consider a sequel for another few years, at least. I think if you’re a publisher/developer - that’s a revenue problem. If you’re interest in Marvel is genuine but casual - that’s a consumer problem. The competitive base is satisfied - but they only buy your game once.
This may be hard for a publisher like Capcom to accomplish however, since they’ve scaled expectations with (imo) bloated releases. Smaller games with smaller budgets could also help justify DLC models in the minds of the consumers, I think, if done intelligently. 1 new character in a tightly balanced game with only 8-10 fully-fleshed out characters would be seen as more valuable than 2 new characters in a game already brimming with 50+ characters, I’d think.
I’ve been saying for years FGs shouldn’t even be on a retail shelf - they should be largely digital. Now we’re starting to see them go FTP. Consumers need to be reconditioned in terms of what value is in regards to a fighting game and FTP is a good way to do that.
More characters = more unbalance is also a silly thing to say when there are games like the KoF UM’s that have like 40+ characters and solid balance.
Only reason why a game would have a large roster is cus of legacy plus its a lot easier/safer to say add an old fav to a game rather than make a new char. I think thats why alot of people dont like KI only having 8 chars since its not a new game series.
14-16
SF3 was a fantastic game but one of its weakest points was the characters. We got a few winners (everyone in SF4+ Alex) but ultimately the other characters were just very mediocre and gimmicky.
What I’m worried about is being totally spoiled by USF4 and then going to SF5 and being less than thrilled when there isn’t as much choice.
The only bad character in 3 is Tweleve.
Yes
And I thought everyone except for Chun-Li and Yun sucked.