I have thought about this more than once in the past because as a player in the higher level arenas of a few other games (Descent, Counterstrike, Quake 3, Tribes) I have experienced similar dynamics and discussions between the top players. As a developer it really interests me to examine endgame play, and on this subject I really have only come up with the following:
Every game is going to be “broken” at high level gameplay unless the character used by each player is exactly the same. I should probably go into depth on this as it’s really more of an intuition than a thesis I could spell out, so I will attempt to elaborate because I know this is going to definately elicit some responses.
If any element of the game has an advantage over any other the players will find and exploit that advantage, indeed that is the bulk of what real fighting is all about, but this is a platform of physical equality that enables us to fight in a way we would not normally.
The main attraction of competitive video games I think is that we are all on a semi-even virtual playing ground, instead of having to take on Zangief in real life you can get behind a fireballing shoto and take him out (or try) without fear of getting hurt so young kids and other casual players of this game can really have a blast with the vicarious action.
Competetive players however like to use the game as a platform to measure their actual skills on, and when that is occurring my personal philosophy is that to get the true results of a test like that you would need to both use the same character or it becomes a much bigger dynamic to deal with and does not let the actual differences between the players show as well.
When fun is concerned this is probably a good thing in most cases as noone likes a bruised ego and a certain character may give you something to hide behind to avoid that and therefore have fun while you play, which is really what it’s all about anyway to me.
When I switched from Ken to Gouken I was really saying that I need to run to a different crutch to see how I can do with it, I felt limited with Ken and had to run to something I felt more powerful with. That has a special dynamic all it’s own that I enjoy for what it is.
I personally enjoy the diversity of a large cast and admire the delicate balancing act that the devs have to go through to make it even remotely acceptable as a high level game, but I also feel that if you really want to have an even matchup between the players themselves you have to take the character advantages out of the equation. An example would be how Descent put you both in the same ship and the only thing that could stand between you and another pilot was knowledge of the level, the same thing goes for Quake where you are both in exactly the same guy and the only difference is YOU.
I am not even really trying to make a point to sell anyone on, just explain how I see competetive gaming as a different beast than pleasure gaming and because of that it should have special competetive “equipment” (i.e. a game with only one character) and I know that’s my own weird approach to it but I figured I would share to add fuel for discussion.
