I play a lot of smash 64 and the strain of only having 12 characters really shows after a couple hours of playing. After a while both players just kind of hover the cursor around the character select screen awkwardly cuz you are low on appealing options.
If this happens, either 1. You’re not deep enough into your character or 2. Your characters aren’t deep enough to delve into. I can play 1000 matches of ST and play Blanka the whole way through and be satisfied. The only reason I ever get bored at the select screen in a fighter is because there’s nobody fun enough to play because they’re just shallow characters.
The other thing about roster size is that, as a dev, you want people to use the characters you spent the time to create. Ideally, we want to see players using every character, but the reality is that never really happens. Somebody will get ignored, even when the roster is small (just play a bunch of Divekick matches and track how many times you fight a Stream player). That’s even less reason to have a huge roster, and why it’s better to focus more on variety. Less is more.
Besides, when you have a large cast, devs have a tendency to reuse assets in order to save money/time. That’s why we get alternate versions of the core cast. Just look at Tekken, or the Smash games.
Or any game…
Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tobal 2 even… King of Fighters… Name any FG with a huge roster, you’ll find a lot of reused characters, whether pallette/model swaps (shotos, MK Ninjas) or moves (Nina/Anna, Half the SNK cast…)
Large rosters are for fanservice, not for gameplay options. It’s usually because a portion of people have some illogical attachment to a character and can’t get beyond not having that same character in the sequel, even if there’s a new character with the same exact style to replace them. The result is that you end up getting a bloated franchise.
Hence Mugen.
There isn’t online in Smash 64 and I rarely have more than one opponent to play against. Plus some matchups in Smash 64 are just terrible beyond belief to a point where they really aren’t that much fun. Link vs pikachu on dream land is the definition of not fun in fighting games. The meta is matchup-heavy too so unlike ST it isn’t wise to level up just playing the same character all the time. The set in stone matchups is what really limits me from playing 1,000 straight matches, which I could do all day in marvel where the amount of characters and crazy shit that could happen.
What gets to me about Skullgirls is the fact that they’re using new characters as DLC, despite already having such a small roster. I know they funded them through Indiegogo/etc, and that it would probably be unfair to backers. But as far as I’m concerned, 8 standalone characters just isn’t enough meat for a game rolling out DLC characters.
I don’t think the SG team had much say in the matter. They developed the entire game from scratch, they’re a pretty small dev team as it is, and they were bleeding money. Only reason they started these crowd-sourcing projects was so that they could continue working on a game that, in their eyes, wasn’t even close to being finished. So it’s more like the community itself, which is very small, generous, and dedicated, want to reward Mike Z and his team by supporting their DLC efforts.
You must be on some serious drugs if you don’t think ST is matchup heavy. There’s a reason why many of the top ST players, especially in America, have multiple ‘main’ characters. Matchups make a world of difference in that game, where minor mistakes cost you 10-20% health, and a single major mistakes cost you the entire round. There are matchups in the game rated at 8-2 and 9-1.
And people in SF4 cry about 7-3 matchups. HAH.
Did you just fucking say that ST isn’t matchup heavy?
Because I mean… I’m a Blanka player, but when I fight a Gief, they know to stop picking Gief. And when I come across a DJ, I go to Guile. Because no matter how good Kusomondo is, he still loses to John Choi because Honda/Ryu is about 9/1…
The thing that prevents you from playing that many matches with your main is that there isn’t anything to learn in Smash 64. In ST, I can go 1000 with Blanka against DJ or Boxer or another of his several 9/1 matchups and still learn shit, hence why if I’m playing casuals, I stick to Blanka, where I only need to counterpick in a tournament, FT10 or something, MM, etc…
Some… I would rate even worse…
Honda/Ryu is nearing a 10/0 in Ryu’s favor. It’s a 9/1, but if you played 100 matches between equal players, I’d bet the Ryu would win more than 90 times.
Likewise, Claw/Sim is AWFUL for Sim. Sim can’t do jack shit.
Rog beating Blanka is another I can think of that just… Blanka can’t do shit but get lucky sometimes. It’s like, OHH accidentally got an electric! WOO, oki! nope, just got headbut looped to death.
9/1 or 8/2 is more like Sim>Gat, DJ/Claw/Sim/Gat>Blanka, Blanka>Gief and in some cases Hawk. Hawk’s saving grace is that he gets that tick loop, he wins…
So many fucking bad matchups in ST. So fucking many.
Nothing’s 10-0. I don’t even think 9-1s. ST is such an unforgiving game that one or two minor mistakes can cost you the round. With that in mind, I leave a 2 point cushion as a sort of standard of deviation.
Sim v. Claw isn’t AS bad as people think. It’s bad, yes, but Sim actually has a lot of good options against Claw as long as he doesn’t get knocked down. Plus Sim’s noogie traps can absolutely wreck shop on Claw. Theoretically, Sim can counter everything Claw does. Obviously it’s not easy to execute the perfect theory, but as long as you can min/max on your advantages, it’s winnable. It’s WAY better than like Honda versus (insert non-fireball character) or Ryu v. Honda.
Blanka just has to play the footsie game against Balrog. Get the life lead off a few good hits and trades, and you can turtle up like a whore. That’s pretty much all of Blanka’s seriously bad matchups, lol.
Sim v. Gat is a bad matchup, but as long as Gat plays smart and doesn’t do autopilot tiger shots, it’s fightable. He can make it more difficult on Sim than it needs to be. Claw v. Blanka is actually a fairer matchup than most, but very turtley. Claw can’t abuse the wall dive, which forces him to stay on the ground, and if Blanka can get a good jump on him, it can be over pretty quick.
Hawk has insane comeback potential, but a bad matchup is a bad matchup. He can still get zoned out, but you have to watchout for random jumps and hawk dive punishes.
I played ryu vs sim and goddamn was that hard for me. I might just suck at ST but it was like, I had to be psychic and DP when he just had me in the corner, an there was nothing i could do. He was punishing me for fireballs and blocking my fireballs. I was like “wooooooooooooah.” I still won, but never have I had to look THAT far into the future, using some observation haki to just barely win a match
EDIT: btw i know this ain’t the ST thread but i combo’d ryu’s overhead into crouching jab on the left corner. Is that common?
People relate broken roster with a game badly planned or designed. Unless the idea is having many characters intentionally overpowered and many others intentionally useless, what would be very idiotique and IMO would go totally against what fighting games are supposed to be.
Too many characters bad? No. Little characters actually worthy to use bad? Yes.
Hey hey hey, you start saying bad things about my Robo-Ky then you can gfy.
Personally, I don’t care that much for balance. For me, the funniest to play the game is, that’s what it matters.
Well for me having too many characters creates the problem of too much choice.
If you are new to a game that only has 8 characters, you are kind of limited in who you end up liking. You may find one or two characters you like so you are kind of forced into playing with them. This is opposed to a game with 50 characters, then you start getting into “well I like the play style here, but the design there, oh this guy is kinda good, but so it this other guy” and so on. It becomes hard to choose who to stick with especially when you don’t know the match ups. Large rosters also require more balance which makes things even more, I dunno gray/mundane.
As for the Shotos, sure they are different to an advanced player, but to a newbie their playstyle is similar enough to be confusing.
I picked up Chun in ST because (aside from already liking her in 3rd) I saw how most of her matchups are favorable or at least close. She strikes me as a very stable character compared to some of the other strong characters who seem to have more highs and lows to them, matchup-wise.
Once you realize that a) Sim doesn’t do a lot of damage on punishes (unless he has super), b) He has no good reversal options, so you can jump on him on knockdown and mix him up for days, and c) his limbs don’t do chip damage, so you can safely block a lot of his attacks and you’re fine. It’s not so bad. Yes, it is in Sim’s favor. But if you pick and choose your spots, don’t throw fireball at ranges where he can drill on reaction, and realise that playing a bit more randomly will open up opportunities for you, it isn’t so bad. The matchup is definitely a strong lesson in developing a good strategy, relying on reactions, and learning to feel the momentum of the match and of your opponent.
Ryu can combo a LOT of things after an overhead. a) He can only combo it if they’re crouching, will they probably are if they got hit, b) he can link any crouching normal attack after a successfully-hit overhead. He can even combo into super depending on your spacing and the character you’re fighting.
how come there are so many chars but never the ones I like?
KappaRyu
ST Zangief vs Akuma is an easy match up for Zangief, all you have to do is lariat through fireballs and grab him.
All of this I know.
Ok, so I’m not trying to be a smartass, but please show me some Sim doing well against Claw. I’ve honestly never seen it.
Blanka could turtle yeah in all those situations, and his oki game is ridiculous. It’s really a matter of getting that c.hk down on any character (DJ for example).
That said… Blanka does kinda own Gief up, considering you need two moves and Gief can’t get in at all. I mean, these “matchup ranks” are just theory fighter, and theoretically, Gief can’t do shit against c.hk and s.mp. In an actual fight though… I’ve gotten SPD’d out of my super, SPD’d out of electric, SPD’d on full extension of my c.hk from half the screen away, etc… So yeah, it’s not truly an unwinnable matchup… But if you stick with the whole “theory” aspect of these matchups, it’s a lot worse on paper than in an actual match, considering execution, reads, human error, stress, etc…
That said, fuck theory fighter.
Boy was I fucking salty that one time when I was fighting DJfrijoles… He was Ryu, I was my usual Blanka… I had a HUGE life lead, I mean I was about to get a perfect. He starts to pressure me into the corner, gets overhead , c.hp xx shinku into dizzy… I was like YOU MOTHERFUCKER
Gian, Hakase, and Cole all have videos where they do well against Claw. Look, I’m not saying he wins it, but it’s not the clusterfuck that is Ryu v. Honda. Even Ganelon said that he’s never played against a Japanese Sim that can handle Claw as well as Cole. Cole’s level of dirtiness is pretty damn good at keeping Claw in the lockdown, and Sim has many good options against Claw on the ground. Is it easy to pull off? Well, no. But you can’t really react to most of Claw’s pokes anyways, so if you end up outplaying him in one or two footsies situations and get close enough to land the grab, the match becomes a lot fairer.
It’s definitely a momentum-based match. I feel like Sim v. Claw on the ground is a 6-4 matchup in Claw’s favor, but if either Claw starts the knockdown wall dive bullshit, or Sim starts his noogie traps and variations, it suddenly becomes 8-2 for the advantage character. It’s a coin toss really. There’s no real solid way to play the match. You try to outplay each other, so you lay it down on the line, and hopefully it comes out okay for you.
Theory fighter can be useful, as long as it’s not the “end all, be all” of a matchup. It’s supposed to act as a guide if you’re stuck on a particular matchup, but it’s really up to the player to practice and train to bring their execution closer to the “perfect” strategy. It’s largely why Sim players (like me), are never truly satisfied with their level. We know that Sim is capable of winning every matchup in the game in theory, since he possesses a lot of good counters, but the execution of that is nearly impossible.
We get as close as we can though.