alternatively speaking, what movesets, traits, and other such qualities tend towards being overly strong or weak instead of just right?
this is assuming everyone can agree on the game engine as well. suppose it’s st for argument. imo:
gief (grapplers in general). the problem here is, by design, you’re going to get most if not all of your damage from 360s. naturally this requires you to be close to the opponent. due to the nature of 360s (god forbid having no whiff animation) once you’re close the opponent has very few options and has to pray for lucky reversal dps or whatnot, i.e. he’s gonna eat a spd one way or another. the problem for the grappler is getting in, but how do you make it so it’s not too easy (ex green hand lol) but not too hard? how would you tweak lariat/green hand speed and recovery?
or let’s say you land your spd. you bounce away. but how far? too close and you get dumb throw loops. too far and, well, would the 360 even be worth it?
that’s not even considering different system mechanics that guarantee throw invincibility for a few frames after blockstun, 0-frame spd vs. spd with startup, etc.
guile. getting the perfect charge times has to be a bitch. you’d have to account for jump speed/floatiness, recovery of non-guile fbs, recovery on and comboability after the sb itself, etc. that’s the nature of having only two special moves, I guess.
I wouldn’t exactly say I’m the most qualified street fighter player, but theorizing is sure fun. discuss.
I agree that grapplers are either really bad or really good. They’re entire strategy is a guessing game. Other characters are like this as well, but grapplers make it most obvious. Try to set up a tick throw, you get DPed or reversaled. But you can bait the reversal as well. But this is still a guessing game. You have to catch your opponent and make sure you don’t lose them.
Guile isn't hard to balance. He's no worse than shoto in terms of character design.
I believe claw is pretty hard to balance. Great range, great priority, and decent AAs. But Claw is either too good or really crappy. It's really hard to make him an all around great character, because his gameplan is somewhat one dimensional.
I would say in terms of other games:
Eddie from GGXX
Magneto/Storm from versus
It appears that rushdown based characters with high mobility always end up busted in some way.
Zoning characters, it’s a precarious balance of, if they are too good at zoning no one can get to them, if they aren’t good enough they just get massacred in close range.
Yes, I think there has to be a balance. A zoning character should be at a disadvantage in most cases, should a close-ranged fighter get close, but you shouldn’t make that they are helpless and that its endgame should someone engage them in CC.
IMO it would be high risk high reward characters like Grapplers (usually too weak) and rushdown type characters or high range not slow type characters (for being too strong).