I personally think it’s good, I have 1 or 2 exceptions. But overall I feel like this is a big improvement, And with time I believe it will get even better (New tech, Matchups ect)
My main gripes are Ragna, Tsubaki and the Blue beat combos.
Ragna is too strong. Having the most popular character in BB (Now even more popular) This strong genuinely sucks the fun out of online BB. Over 50% of my games are against Ragna, They all play the same, do the same combos, No variety. Too much damage blah blah blah. Too strong compared to others except Hakumen.
Almost the exact opposite of the above. She is far too weak and is NOT viable at high level anymore, Heck, she’s barely viable at all (No, I don’t main her)
Truthfully, in spite of all the talk about how balanced EX is, I feel it’s no better balanced than CS2 - possibly slightly worse.
In CS2 we had:
Makoto was too strong, at least required a high degree of executional skill to use well.
Noel was too strong, and was stupid easy to use.
Tager was weak.
A few other characters (Hazama, Valk, maybe even Jin) sometimes snuck into “top tier” depending on who made the list, but it was generally not a problem.
In CS:EX we have:
Hakumen is too strong, but at least requires…some degree of executional skill to use well.
Ragna is too strong, and is pretty darn easy to use.
Tsubaki is weak.
Makoto is weak.
A few other characters (Hazama, Valk, Tao) sometimes sneak into “top tier” depending on who made the list, but it’s generally not a problem.
So we actually have MORE “outlier” characters than we did in CS2. Also, the outlier characters are the source of WAY MORE “WTF were you thinking, Arc Sys?” than they were in CS2.
I mean, for serious. Ragna and Tsubaki were pretty much the SAME TIER in CS2, and Ragna got huge heaping piles of buffs and Tsubaki got huge heaping piles of nerfs. WTF? It’s made extra special fun that Ragna is now super common AND pretty much Tsubaki’s worst matchup.
Regardless of what changes happen, certain characters have certain tools that make them good, and thus far most characters in this game are top tier for a few reasons. Ability to lock down someone, ability to pressure, ease of use, options overall vs the rest of the cast, etc.
Not to try and down SRK or anything, I do know some people check here first for BB stuff because they don’t know about Dustloop or what-not, but I’ll get you guys started on something that’s been discussed heavily in terms of Tier list placement, and balance changes.
Actually, I don’t notice a trend at all, unless that trend is “No character has been top tier twice” which isn’t much of a trend.
I’m well aware of what the tier list looks like, which is why I am able to contribute intelligently to this discussion. The fact that Xie feels the tiers are closely packed this time around is nice and all, but I’m not really sure I agree that they are CLOSER. Especially if you use the “ignore Tager” method (i.e. if you drop the one major outlier in CS2, the balance to me looks closer than EX. You need to drop at least two characters from your reckoning to get the same close grouping in EX.)
Well I didn’t feel like going into too many details as I am a very “lazy” person, Rachel got dicked after CT, and in CS2 she was fixed to “playable” status as most people I know refer to her as. Litchi got hit hard as well from being Dial-a-combo 4k to work a bit harder, not overly bad, but not as amazing as she was. I’ll validate that you believe some characters Tsubaki/Ragna should have more or less been left alone. However the rest of the cast needed those changes. As far as I’m concerned I think it’s fine. No one really played Tsubaki from the beginning till now, her character is “boring”(opinion of most people who play this game). Characters that are “too hard”(opinion of most players once again) to learn to play such as Carl, Litchi, Tao, Valkenhayn, Rachel don’t get many people on their bandwagon as well, but you can admit, that every character has the tools necessary to win matches when need be, excluding Tsubaki(still has one of the best AA’s, though one of the worst FCs), everyone is viable to a degree that, no match-up should be a problem.
Yes, they have a tendancy to nerf the top tier (Though I submit that even after several rounds of nerfs, Litchi is still pretty good.)
I would also argue strongly against the idea that “most of the cast needed those changes” from CS2 - there was a large, fairly closely clumped A-tier in CS2 that basically consisted of everyone except Makoto, Noel, Hazama, Tager and maybe Valk. Beyond those five or so characters, most of the cast needed only minimal changes, and, curiously, that’s what most of them got, but inexplicably, Ark Sys decided that Ragna, Hakumen, and Tsubaki needed large changes. I think you’ll find that’s a hard claim to support in general.
I’m impressed that you know the opinion of “most people who play the game” though. I certainly don’t and don’t claim to. I would speculate that most people would say that Ragna is boring - certainly, I could make an objective argument that Tsubaki has a more interesting gameplay design than he does, but Ragna is stupid common, so I don’t think “boring” factors into it.
Additionally, being unpopular shows no real correlation with nerfs of lack thereof either - Tao and Valk are bleeding into top Tier in EX, Carl and Rachel are very solid. So obviously popularity wasn’t the influence here - except perhaps for the fact that less popular characters get less Loktest time, and therefore if Arksys decides to go off the deep end and do stupid things to them, there’s less chance of them “discovering” this in the loktest. It still doesn’t explain why they would do radically stupid things in the first place.
And lastly, having a good AA isn’t very helpful if you opponent can beat you easily without leaving the ground.
As a Tsubaki main since CS1, I do not agree with that statement at all. The way you say that almost makes it sound like she’s back to CS1 levels which is not true. She’s still viable, she CAN still win tournaments, the chances of that happening is slim however as she needs to put in a lot more work than the rest of the cast and has a hard time getting through all the Ragna’s that make her life miserable (her worst matchup).
Not to say I wouldn’t mind CS2 back however, though I find CS EX Tsubaki more fun to play, which is honestly all that matters to me.
If BB3’s Tsubaki is a mix of the good from CS2 and the good from CS EX (while still keeping her from being too good, mind) then that would be perfect.
hi guys, I’m struggling to decide whether to invest my time in this game or SFxT… my main concern is the balance. Are Ragna and Tsubaki really so distant in terms of playability? I don’t care about tiers per se but I don’t want another game where no-brain characters can destroy more technical ones with just spamming one move…
Thanks!
BB:CSE isn’t perfect, but it is waaayyyy more balanced than SFxTK. As to the latter point, there are some characters who still have some extremely potent low-execution BnBs, but really that’s on you and not the person doing them, all you have to do is defend properly and punish.
In SFxTK’s defense, it still has a lot of potential ahead of it, just because it’s badly balanced now doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed via patching.
The Ragna/Tsubaki matchup is a little weird - it’s pretty heavily in Ragna’s favor, but that’s more because of the way the two characters interact than it is because Ragna is actually that much better than Tsubaki. This matchup was painful for Tsubaki in CS2 when she was significantly stronger as well. When you are comparing their overall match spread, it’s pretty close - there are some characters that Tsubaki fares better against, or at least, comparably to, Ragna, simply because of the tools she has available, but in a head to head match, it’s not particularly well balanced. Of course, it’s entirely possible for even top tier characters to have bad matchups, so you shouldn’t base your valuation of balance on Ragna vs Tsubaki alone.
I guess Ragna deserves some buffing for his quickly-predictable close-ups and starters. While I do think Tsubaki was nerfed too much she is capable of dominating any battle with Install-wise pressuring.
I’d say Tsubaki has it pretty rough. She can only really gain meter when she scores a knockdown because in neutral it’s pretty difficult for her. When she has that meter she becomes a bit more dangerous but unless she spends a ton of meter her damage never becomes something I’d panic burst over. Although her special moves do redeem her a bit, her corner carry is still top notch.
I know I keep going on about Ragna, but he doesn’t need any buffs at all right this minute. They really need to rethink him and Valkenhayn.
I think Valk doesn’t need nerfing since his power comes with price of his speed (even his 5a has frame disadvantage to everyone else). As for his Nacht Jäger the answer is instant block.