Fighting game rant. Enter at your own risk

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

A couple of days ago I opened up a thread asking people if they thought 3s Gouki could ever win a major tournament in the U.S. While the overwhelming response was somewhat optimistic, I was left with the impression that most people doubted heavilly it could happen, and that it could never happen at the biggest stages such as EVO or SBO. I tried remaining optimistic, tried to convince myself that other characters really could win at a big stage, but just a while ago it hit me how shitty all of this really is. Im just sick of it, Im sick of waiting every year to watch an EVO or SBO to see the same 3 characters in SF3 duel it out for the top spot. Im sick and tired of seeing the exact same play styles and the same bullshit all the time. Everytime you always see a Chun-Li turtle out a Ken, or watch a Ken rushdown a Chun, or watch Yun beat them both down with the same Genei shit. Or in Tekken always having to watch Jin vs. Chang, or always having to see the same top tier teams in MvC2. It’s a shitty balancing job and I don’t buy this crap that it’s impossible to totally balance a game, or at the very least make it so that every character has the moves necessary to win at any event against any other character. I mean let’s look at MvC2. I would seriously punch a Capcom rep if he tried to feed me this shit that they really didn’t notice that cable was over powered. I mean anyone making that game could see clear as day that Cable and the other top tiers are overpowered, and if they couldn’t see it then they are not qualified to make a game, simple as fucking that. It’s very clear to me now that a lot of these companies have become lazy and just wish to ship out a new game anytime they feel like it without spending enough time to balance the game, and it’s truly sad. From now on unless Capcom (and any other company making unbalanced games) decides to make balanced games, then they can blow me because im not standing for this shit. Hell if Soul Calibur, VF4 and GGXX reload can be highly balanced given how much more complex they are in comparison to 3s, then their is no excuse for making sub par balance figting games. Maybe it’s clear to me now why most of the world has moved on to other types of competitive games and left it the fighting games for dead, and their is no one to blame more then the companies who have ruined it with broken fighting games. The Japanese can keep their lazy broken fighting games because ill be playing a lot less fighting games from now on and go join the rest of the world who have evolved with the times.

</rant>

Note: This thread is MY OPINION. If anyone disagrees with it then too bad. If you don’t like it, sue me.

2

ksk been making final 8 for a couple years now, this year a dudely did too.

3

Hsien Chang placed 2nd at B4 using Akuma and Yang. B4 was basically Evo2000. But that was a quite a long time ago.

4

Uh, we’re not allowed to disagree? Are you just looking for a yesman to make you feel better? And why would you punch a Capcom representative when representatives probably aren’t even responsible for the content of the games?

5

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Virtua Fighter is arguably the most balanced of the games you listed, and it’s on it’s SIXTH version of VF4 alone, not even including the previous VF games. Every time they have to change something to try and balance the game, and EVERY time something else comes up as a result. Perfect balance is, in fact, impossible.

SF3 only has 3 versions, and each time they changed the game drastically. It wasn’t just small tweaks, it’s complete changes and additions on characters. They’ve essentially changed the entire game twice over. They’ve done a pretty fucking remarkable job in making the game playable at all in some sections, though they did rather fumble with the lowest tiered chars (Twelve/Sean/Q). These characters still aren’t completely unplayable, very small tweaks would be required to make them upper-mid characters. If they had THREE MORE chances to patch the game, I’d daresay it would be almost perfect.

Guilty Gear is only slightly less so, because the system balances the game, NOT the characters. The game is built in such a manner that bursts/RCs/Faultless Defense takes up a lot of the slack where plain characters would falter. And again, it hasn’t changed a LOT through its various incarnations, they’re mostly just patching the original game.

In tourneys, people are doing their damnedest to WIN. You don’t go easy, you don’t soften up for any reason. It’s like if I used Akuma in a tourney (decent enough), but picked SA3 instead of SA1. SA1 is generally regarded to be the better super, therefore if I come up against someone with exactly equal skill to mine, using SA1, I’d prolly lose. Picking top tier is hedging your bet.

We don’t have enough tourneys here (United States) to foster a community where people can dedicate themselves to offshoot styles and characters, unless you live somewhere like Los Angeles or New York or Texas. So people go with what they know, what feels most confident. You can’t blame people for playing ‘serious’ when they’re faced with the best comp they’re likely to see all year.

</truth>

N

6

Welcome to the world of competitive gaming…

When large sums of money are on the line, such as at Evo, people aren’t going to take chances. They’re going to go with what works.

While I wouldn’t say SC is as balanced as GGX2#R or VF4, I certainly believe that they’re more balanced than Capcom fighters. I have to agree that Capcom should do a little bit better of a job of ensuring character balance, but it’s not as if their games are broken (far from it).

People compete to win. So they will use what works best, and until some other magical character strategy shows up, that means seeing mostly top tier characters and strategies.

7

Every game has it’s faults, sport games -> MMORPG games -> fighting games

They all have their tiers even in the real world too

8

[quote=Thongboy Bebop]
You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Perfect balance is impossible, but Balance to the point where every character can win IS very, very possible and it has been proven.

</reality>

Bah, they could have done a better balancing job. I don’t buy that. They only released 3 versions of the game for more $$$, if they wanted they could have balanced it a lot better in one try. Then again I don’t expect a fan of capcom or fighting games to understand this.

</reality>

No one cares how it’s balanced, so long as it is balanced.

</reality>

That’s precisely what shouldn’t be happening. You should be able to pick any character and have an equal chance at winning.

</reality>

That’s besides the point, I clearly said I was blaming the companies themselves for what the players end up having to do to win, I wasn’t in any way attacking the players themselves. I couldn’t make it any more clear then I did actually.

</reality>

9

This is also true for VF4.

Edit: Also, it’s easy to sit here from 5 years later and say 3S isn’t balanced. Did you know that 3S wasn’t balanced 5 years ago? No, no one did, not even Capcom. Not that they cared that much. They made sure the infinites were gone, and other big issues, and tried to make it an interesting game. If balance is REEEALY that important to you, play one of the more balanced games you mentioned, and stop complaining about a game that was made FIVE YEARS AGO.

10

Where? Vagueness only slows me down from proving you wrong. Again.

Where exactly do you think Capcom is getting all of this funding to make 2-d games for a niche market? We’re lucky they keep it up as it is. The game has been out for over FIVE YEARS, how do you expect them to see that far ahead? The tiers haven’t been set in stone since the week the game came out. Good job Mr Monday Morning. Keep up the good hindsight.

That’s complete nonsense. The only way every character has an equal chance is if everyone picks the same character and SA. As soon as there’s a difference, whoever has a faster jab animation or better super link becomes the better character. Even Chun/Yun/Ken aren’t exactly the same, they’re just generally agreed upon as better than the rest.

I cited the example of players because you complained about seeing the same characters everywhere. This isn’t true EVERYWHERE, mostly just in the United States specifically, because of the reasons I listed. We don’t take (or really have) the time or experience to generate the KSKs and the Sugiyamas, people who take an underplayed character and just RUN with it. It’s not because the characters are shit, sometimes they suit the player who uses them better than the Chun/Yun/Ken unholy trio does. Sometimes it’s about mindgame, and coming up with new shit. Where were you when Tokido brought the house down with Aegis Reflectors? When JR was busting Raging Demons like nothing? When Gee-O was Yangin’ it up? Oh, right. Since that’s before you picked up a PS2 and decided you’re an expert on all things 3s, it doesn’t count, ya?

N

11

I’m not sure what you mean by this. The characters don’t really all have ‘general’ moves like Burst/RC/FD, they each have their own unique style, movelist, and range. Which is pretty effing impressive to me all by itself really, that they can maintain such thorough balance with all of that going on.

Without those things, a lot of characters in GGXX would suck ass outright. You’d have to completely redesign the game, and I don’t think it would work well at all. But they did well with the way it works, so I won’t knock it.

N

12

yes capcom makes shitty fighting games. this is news how?

no game is perfect when it is first released. that’s what patches are for. that’s why blizzard makes great computer games. it playtests for a LONG time, and then releases a great game. if anything is broken, it gets patched. blizzard is a good company. capcom is a piece of crap. haha crapcom.

the only game it did that with was sf2. it went through many incarnations until it got good. or supposedly. sf2t is supposed to be balanced (RIGHT?). even then throws were hella broken and cheap and did ridiculous amounts of damage. now 3s is supposed to be balanced as well, because capcom made changes with each new version. but i think the main balancing thing is parrying. it gives characters a fighting chance. but parrying is gay. it makes the game like rock paper scissors, from what i hear. cvs2 is also pretty balanced because of roll cancels - it gives all characters a fighting chance. however, i hear roll cancels are also very gay. and in all those games, the way of the turtle is the way of the winner. so yeah crapcom = maker of gay turtle games.

now xmen vs sf was broken infinite city. another game where throws were ridiculously cheap did too much damage and equalled death especially if thrown in the corner. marvel vs sf i think was actually balanced (not sure) but it sucked donkeys. mvc1 was broken. mvc2 redefined broken.

since the only game i play at all is mvc2, that’s the only one i’ll argue with ppl about. it is broken crap. however it is fun to a small pool of people (including me). for the rest of the world, like the original poster, hate it becuz it gets boring to watch the top tier rape the rest. great job on that capcom. a damn shame too, since imo mvc2 is the best, deepest, and beautiful game that capcom has ever created. however the broken tiers make it unattractive to many ppl, and i dont blame them. yes it is boring to see the same stuff over and over. its only enjoyable for a select small group who find beauty in the game engine, like a diamond hidden in crap. capcom COULD have fixed it if they had released new versions of it, like it did with sf2 or sf3. however, it DIDNT. and thus it sux. i know if they toned the top tier now, i’d quit playing the game and so would most others.
so yeah capcom doesn’t know how to make good fighting games. that’s why 2d fighting games are dead

OH WAIT, i hear sfa3 is a great fighting game. i hear very few complaints about it. so i guess thats the only good game capcom ever made. the end.

13

Uhm, what Thongboy said.

14

>>They only released 3 versions of the game for more $$$, if they wanted they could have balanced it a lot better in one try.

You have absolutely no idea what software development entails, let alone game design. As ‘unbelievable’ as this may seem, it is impossible to make a ‘perfect’ product, especially in the first iteration. The reason why VF4 is so good is because of the multiple iterations it has gone through. Don’t give me that beta/alpha testing crap, either. If you could find every single option of play in a reasonable amount of time with a small user base, then you might be getting somewhere. The most that such testing can do is iron out the big problems. Think about how much MvC2 has changed over the years, just because people find out new things that can be done. Same goes for CvS2 and every other goddamn fighting game. Hell, even ancient games like Go are being tweaked. It’s not like they had the score handicap for black in the early days either. You find out shit about the game by lots and lots of exposure and play time. To think that you’d be able to make a faultless game on the first try is incredibly naive, especially without any way to objectively measure things like how ‘good’ a fighting game character is.

>>That’s precisely what shouldn’t be happening. You should be able to pick any character and have an equal chance at winning.

That’s rediculous. Using characters that are NOT exactly the same, your chances at winning will directly depend on not just who YOU pick, but who the OPPONENT picks. In fact, in some games, even the STAGE can affect the outcome of a match. In CvS2, considering the 2P crossup quirk, which side you are playing on can affect the chances at winning and losing as well. After all, when someone counter character/groove/whatever’s you, it changes your chances at winning. Trying to balance it so that every character can have an equal chance to win, for all the permutations of possible opponents/stage/groove, means that in some way, all the opponent values must be equal to the same value. that means that for every possible combination of any character, any stage, and any groove, must be equal to a certain total value which is the same as all such possible combinations. You can go through a proof to prove that the only way this is possible if the sets of characters/stages/grooves are non-empty is if all the elements of those sets are equal. In layman’s terms, if all the characters, stages, and grooves were exactly the same.

Stop whining that your “OMFG RAGING DEMON IS SO COOL!!! AKUMA IS SO BADASS CAUSE HE’S EVIL!!!” favorite storyline scrub ass character isn’t hella badass (like how he obviously should be, because, hey, he’s evil) in your game of choice, and just play.

Whether you choose to play top-tier or not is your choice, but to say shit like “it should be fair no matter who our favorite character that we want to play is” is completely unjustified. If you think competitive events are fair, you have no idea. In fact, you’ll find fighting games to be incredibly fair for the most part, because unlike the real world, both players can have the exact same ‘equipment’ by picking the same characters, etc.

You want to handicap yourself, fine. But to blame your handicap on the game design is a copout, especially when it isn’t a problem in the game that is making you less competitive, it’s your own personal choice preferences that make it that way.

15

What fishjie said, it reminds me of what sirlin said about MvC2 balancing system: “Put a broken ability on every character and they balance every other out dude!! Hand me mah beer!!”

16

Well, to me, part of that makes VF balanced are the system-wide defensive options.

Everyone can fuzzy guard, everyone can evade-throw escape-guard, throw escape-guard, evade crouchdash, backdash-evade, box step, etc. 90% of the defensive options in VF can be used with every character, and that’s what keeps would-be “too good” moves in check. There is always a clear option to beat every move/flowchart.

Some may equate all the defensive options in VF to “everyone can block in SF2”, but a lot of work went into designing the defensive systems in VF

17

nothing is perfect.
take it or leave it.

18

Ah, I hear ya. You’re right…ish.

N

19

I think the issue with #R’s balance is that it has so many defensive options(FD, IB, Burst, DAA, and RC and FRC to an extent), as well as everyone has “cheap” shit. I mean 3 people have reliable unblockables(Eddie, Anji, Zappa), Potemkin has one of the meanest comboable command grabs ever, Sol’s VV and FRC Gunflame, Slayer BDCs 6HS’s, etc.

20

Thongboy Bebop has this under control, but I’ve been thinking about this subject recently and thought I could add a little.

It’s obvious you’re in need of some education Demon. For starters, head over to www.sirlin.net and have a long read. Sirlin is an authority on this subject, whilst you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

(BTW nothing fishjie said reminded me of any of Sirlin’s articles. His post is one giant contradiction full of nothing but nonsense. How can you say a statement implying “MvC2 is great but it sucks, and if Capcom fixed it I’d stop playing,” makes any sense at all, let alone compare it with Sirlin???)

Once you’ve read that (which of course you will, since you were passionate enough to start an uninformed argument about it), you should realise that your definition of balance is meaningless in the context of competitive play. The only balance that matters is whether or not the game stands-up to serious competition. 3S, CvS2 and MvC2 have all passed this test and continue to do so, otherwise the players wouldn’t still be competing in these games.

On the contrary, the first is easy - just remove all but one character/team and you have achieved perfect balance. The latter is actually the hard one, and you don’t seem to have any proof to the contrary (of course, because it’s all in your head).

Garbage. You wouldn’t play the all-Ryu fighter I suggested above. There are also people that don’t like the idea of balance via the engine (as in GGXX#r) because in extreme cases you always play the same style regardless of the character used, and any individuality the characters possess becomes meaningless. Would you be happy if 3S Akuma and 3S Chun Li played exactly the same because the engine over-rode their individual character designs completely?

Reducing the roster also solves your problem. Perhaps you’d be happier if only 2 or 3 characters were included (say Ken, Chun Li and Yun in 3S), as that way you wouldn’t be presented with “false hope” in the form of lower-tiered characters. Variety and balance are opposite forces. Introduce one and you damage the other. Finding the right mix is what creates a successful competitive game, fighting or otherwise.

I strongly disagree with this conclusion. I believe that many gamers have left fighting games for other genres not because the games are “broken” (a convenient way to describe something you can’t win at), but because they simply aren’t good enough to play them. There are so many alternatives to fighting games these days, and most of them are very scrub friendly. The internet lets you hide from any need to face other people, which is a huge attraction for many all by itself. Combine that with all these multiplayer games in which it’s near impossible to consider the results in relation to the skills of the players involved, and you have a scrub’s dream come true. Fighting games are one-on-one, up close and personal. The result is a direct assessment of your skill relative to your opponent’s, and you can’t hide behind other players when the going gets rough, nor can you just run over and pick on a lesser scrub to boost your ego.

I suggest you drop these Capcom games that are causing you so much angst, and instead get into one of these balanced games you’re so keen on. When that doesn’t work out for you, I hope you find a nice FPS/RTS/MMORPG game to keep you entertained. Hopefully you’ll then be too busy to post any more uneducated nonsense. Maybe fishjie can help you get started, since he’s a mad Blizzard fan, and that way we can kill 2 birds with one stone.