AK Harold
Noob
Patches will almost always provide more positive than negative changes to a game, any game. If they did not, then the devs would burn for it. I think the main problem here is that people are having multiple conversations and lumping into one. Lets take time to separate a few of the conversations in here. This will be long and I am sure I will get flamed on several points since I am going to do this in one shot without as much thought put into this as everyone else.
1. Bugs, infinites, game breaking mechanics. They exist, deal with it for now. Anyone saying NRS did a bad job or testers did a bad job because there are bugs and these things "clearly" should have already been addressed has not played a video game in the last 10 years. Every game releases with bugs. Hit box bugs etc. seem blatantly obvious to us, but really think about how many bugs existed before release. They have to go on a priority scale when developing. Also, testers do exactly that! They test the game, they are not perfect and can produce every possible testing parameter. Naturally certain match ups that breed interesting/buggy results will occur even after testers have done their job in the time frame given (example- character A d1 whiffs on characters B,C,D but not character E,F,G. This stuff happens and should get fixed and time will do that. Step back and think of it this way, how long did it take for certain bugs to be "discovered" and used in other games with 200+ dedicated players practicing at least 2-3 times a week AND tournaments for 2 years? Things get unnoticed or simply written off by the untrained eye at times so do not trash the people that work hard to try and make something as great as we have before us. Bring them up, make videos, reproduce them and help fix these problems without ego.
2. Character balance. NERF xyz, the dreaded nerf. Yes there are going to be obviously strong characters like Kung Jin and there will be tiers developed eventually. BUT please understand the repercussions of certain actions. Let us use Kung Jin for example. Most people can agree his 50/50 is pretty strong with their range and safety. The problem I have is people want to outright nerf it in some way, typically more negative frames. This spawns a few more discussions though that you have to include but seldom do. IS the 50/50 what makes him good? If they nerf it to be safe but more negative is that enough? Is making it punishable overkill? If either option is chosen, will he be top 5 top 10 or bottom 5? I understand the frustration of figuring out a game and fighting against a character that are faster to figure out. It sucks. What if in 3 weeks after a patch, there was something figured out to break down Kung Jin's jump in punch (which I feel is very strong), dive kick, neutral Jump punch, etc. Then in addition to being nerfed we find his other qualities are not as powerful as we believed. Example - I hear constantly that his strings are so good because it is another 50/50. I have outright proven this false with proper block training. His only true 50/50 at this time that I know of is the initial hit. So if you are getting hit mid string by his low/high and then proceed to getting launched by a bow staff spin or knocked down on the low one OR getting launched by the last hit of the enhanced versions please lab more. Alternatively, if you blocked like you should have then proceed to not punish it or hit him back for less than 10% damage, lab more. It may make your matches a lot more even than you think. Then ANOTHER question comes up, how many match ups will this nerf alter? Does he already have a bad match up that no one knows about? What ARE his good match ups and why? I do not mind someone saying they "THINK" a character is overpowered, but please elaborate. As obvious as you think something is overpowered, it may be just as obvious that it is not to someone else. I mean you guys scoff at new players saying xyz is so broken and unbeatable. Lets all just assume there is a better or worse player than you playing the exact same match up and breakdown the match ups consistently. It is a waste of time to just flat out say oh Jax vs Sonya is 7-3. What the fuck does that even mean? It provides zero information about why you believe anything and the numbers are measuring what again? Did you play one Sonya player as Jax and have a 30% win rate? I have no idea what it means so be a more helpful player and elaborate what is going on in that match up so we can collaborate on solutions/ideas/tech.
3. Game Balance - Buffs, the "oh baby!" button. Will keep this shorter since it is similar to the above. Ask all the same questions. "I feel Quan Chi has a hard time waking up against Cassie in the cornder and gets murdered, they should give me a better armor move." - Harold. It sounds reasonable, but you again are just taking one instance in a vacuum with disregard to the match up as a whole and other possible match ups. Quan Chi is known to have very strong zoning and 50/50 tools among other things. Most people currently would say "fuck no!" to Quan Chi getting a meter burned skull that is mid and even safe. Why? Because you are looking at his tools collectively. But ask all the same questions, what are the match ups like? Maybe he needs it? Maybe he does not.
4. Game Balance - Tiers. I am sorry to inform everyone here, but sometimes in fighting games there are characters that are not as good as the others. I do not know if you guys knew this. If you can provide a legitimate example aside from maybe street fighter 1 let me know. I think Ken may have been better than Ryu in that version anyhow. Really, if your character is not the highest tier or even mid tier you have a couple options. Deal with it and win anyways, or do not deal with it and move onto a character that will win more. "I don't like any of the top tier characters" Well shit the world is not perfect you know? There is something inside of you that just does not like them I can not argue with that. But you weigh what is more fulfilling for you winning or winning with a character you enjoy. Also, do not be sour about abandoning your character and then someone else makes them good and vice versa. And PLEASE do not be the guy that says they are "day 1 xyz" after the fact. (sorry that got personal) lol.
5. Patches are dumb/smart. Patches like I said above will always be more positive than negative, but they do something very important to me as a spectator and player. As a player, if it is 3 weeks before a major I attend, it becomes a little bit like a day 1 tournament again where bullshit flies. "Oh that move is positive/negative now" or damn that moves hit box has changed etc. As a spectator on stream or live, listening to "my character got nerfed so I lost" bugs the shit out of me. You can not definitively say that as you have no idea if you would have won or lost pre patch. The shifting of match ups will happen, that is the intended purpose of balance patches.
6. Character strength. For the love of god, please do not judge character balance based on one parameter such as Top 8. This is ludicrous. It pisses me off more because as a whole this community does it EVERY tournament. Maybe give the players some credit? If I went to a game stop tournament and random select, I guarantee you the cursor would pick the "best" character in the game. Yes we are a bit better player pool, but still the top 8 players are usually THE top 8 players. They know how to play well and pick good characters that suit them. In all honesty though, balance is not displayed in top 8 exclusively. It is a good indication of what high level players are leaning toward. Judging balance on the 1st place character is just as dumb. It makes a HUGE assumption that every player or even the top 8 in the tournament is of equal skill level, thus the player that won simply made the best character choice. Just stop discrediting good players like that. Fucking day 1 tournament and people said Erron Black is top tier for sure, where is he now in that discussion? No one is saying he is bad/good as much.
7. Top players say (off topic). . . Top players are not the go to source of character balance. They have tremendous talent in developing strategies, tactics, reading opponents, picking tools that they feel are good, mental fortitude, and execution. They also at this stage of a games life are focused on their main or a handful of characters. What they are not doing is trying to balance the game as best as possible. They have a wealth of knowledge of their best character, but at this stage they do not have every match up yet. They are focusing on improving their play more and more through tournaments and practice and discussion. These experiences typically tailor their practice sessions. If @FOREVER KING gets 3-0'd by a Scorpion, he will be figuring out how to beat Scorpion the next day. He will not be making a thread about the virtues of Scorpion and demanding nerfs. He is not a good source for balancing the game. If you bodied any of the top players they will always ask this, "What is that, and how do I beat it?" If you guys want to get good do this instead of bitching about a character and assuming you know the match up etc. already. If you simply want to try to balance the game, then discuss specifics. The details are important, again shit is not obvious.
In conclusion, stuff. . . Discuss match ups more, learn more, the best characters may keep being the best. Give more concrete evidence as to why this is and break down why it is good/bad in this game. Lab, play, discuss. Emphasis on DISCUSS. So far in this thread, "oh no this character is too good it is obvious." "I know this character is on the bad list, buff them." Get off your high horses and realize no one knows what the fuck is going on yet.
@GGA Jeremiah sorry to derail the thread some, but I was hoping for meaningful information in this thread, but so far just have people speculating without details about any kind of balance issues.
1. Bugs, infinites, game breaking mechanics. They exist, deal with it for now. Anyone saying NRS did a bad job or testers did a bad job because there are bugs and these things "clearly" should have already been addressed has not played a video game in the last 10 years. Every game releases with bugs. Hit box bugs etc. seem blatantly obvious to us, but really think about how many bugs existed before release. They have to go on a priority scale when developing. Also, testers do exactly that! They test the game, they are not perfect and can produce every possible testing parameter. Naturally certain match ups that breed interesting/buggy results will occur even after testers have done their job in the time frame given (example- character A d1 whiffs on characters B,C,D but not character E,F,G. This stuff happens and should get fixed and time will do that. Step back and think of it this way, how long did it take for certain bugs to be "discovered" and used in other games with 200+ dedicated players practicing at least 2-3 times a week AND tournaments for 2 years? Things get unnoticed or simply written off by the untrained eye at times so do not trash the people that work hard to try and make something as great as we have before us. Bring them up, make videos, reproduce them and help fix these problems without ego.
2. Character balance. NERF xyz, the dreaded nerf. Yes there are going to be obviously strong characters like Kung Jin and there will be tiers developed eventually. BUT please understand the repercussions of certain actions. Let us use Kung Jin for example. Most people can agree his 50/50 is pretty strong with their range and safety. The problem I have is people want to outright nerf it in some way, typically more negative frames. This spawns a few more discussions though that you have to include but seldom do. IS the 50/50 what makes him good? If they nerf it to be safe but more negative is that enough? Is making it punishable overkill? If either option is chosen, will he be top 5 top 10 or bottom 5? I understand the frustration of figuring out a game and fighting against a character that are faster to figure out. It sucks. What if in 3 weeks after a patch, there was something figured out to break down Kung Jin's jump in punch (which I feel is very strong), dive kick, neutral Jump punch, etc. Then in addition to being nerfed we find his other qualities are not as powerful as we believed. Example - I hear constantly that his strings are so good because it is another 50/50. I have outright proven this false with proper block training. His only true 50/50 at this time that I know of is the initial hit. So if you are getting hit mid string by his low/high and then proceed to getting launched by a bow staff spin or knocked down on the low one OR getting launched by the last hit of the enhanced versions please lab more. Alternatively, if you blocked like you should have then proceed to not punish it or hit him back for less than 10% damage, lab more. It may make your matches a lot more even than you think. Then ANOTHER question comes up, how many match ups will this nerf alter? Does he already have a bad match up that no one knows about? What ARE his good match ups and why? I do not mind someone saying they "THINK" a character is overpowered, but please elaborate. As obvious as you think something is overpowered, it may be just as obvious that it is not to someone else. I mean you guys scoff at new players saying xyz is so broken and unbeatable. Lets all just assume there is a better or worse player than you playing the exact same match up and breakdown the match ups consistently. It is a waste of time to just flat out say oh Jax vs Sonya is 7-3. What the fuck does that even mean? It provides zero information about why you believe anything and the numbers are measuring what again? Did you play one Sonya player as Jax and have a 30% win rate? I have no idea what it means so be a more helpful player and elaborate what is going on in that match up so we can collaborate on solutions/ideas/tech.
3. Game Balance - Buffs, the "oh baby!" button. Will keep this shorter since it is similar to the above. Ask all the same questions. "I feel Quan Chi has a hard time waking up against Cassie in the cornder and gets murdered, they should give me a better armor move." - Harold. It sounds reasonable, but you again are just taking one instance in a vacuum with disregard to the match up as a whole and other possible match ups. Quan Chi is known to have very strong zoning and 50/50 tools among other things. Most people currently would say "fuck no!" to Quan Chi getting a meter burned skull that is mid and even safe. Why? Because you are looking at his tools collectively. But ask all the same questions, what are the match ups like? Maybe he needs it? Maybe he does not.
4. Game Balance - Tiers. I am sorry to inform everyone here, but sometimes in fighting games there are characters that are not as good as the others. I do not know if you guys knew this. If you can provide a legitimate example aside from maybe street fighter 1 let me know. I think Ken may have been better than Ryu in that version anyhow. Really, if your character is not the highest tier or even mid tier you have a couple options. Deal with it and win anyways, or do not deal with it and move onto a character that will win more. "I don't like any of the top tier characters" Well shit the world is not perfect you know? There is something inside of you that just does not like them I can not argue with that. But you weigh what is more fulfilling for you winning or winning with a character you enjoy. Also, do not be sour about abandoning your character and then someone else makes them good and vice versa. And PLEASE do not be the guy that says they are "day 1 xyz" after the fact. (sorry that got personal) lol.
5. Patches are dumb/smart. Patches like I said above will always be more positive than negative, but they do something very important to me as a spectator and player. As a player, if it is 3 weeks before a major I attend, it becomes a little bit like a day 1 tournament again where bullshit flies. "Oh that move is positive/negative now" or damn that moves hit box has changed etc. As a spectator on stream or live, listening to "my character got nerfed so I lost" bugs the shit out of me. You can not definitively say that as you have no idea if you would have won or lost pre patch. The shifting of match ups will happen, that is the intended purpose of balance patches.
6. Character strength. For the love of god, please do not judge character balance based on one parameter such as Top 8. This is ludicrous. It pisses me off more because as a whole this community does it EVERY tournament. Maybe give the players some credit? If I went to a game stop tournament and random select, I guarantee you the cursor would pick the "best" character in the game. Yes we are a bit better player pool, but still the top 8 players are usually THE top 8 players. They know how to play well and pick good characters that suit them. In all honesty though, balance is not displayed in top 8 exclusively. It is a good indication of what high level players are leaning toward. Judging balance on the 1st place character is just as dumb. It makes a HUGE assumption that every player or even the top 8 in the tournament is of equal skill level, thus the player that won simply made the best character choice. Just stop discrediting good players like that. Fucking day 1 tournament and people said Erron Black is top tier for sure, where is he now in that discussion? No one is saying he is bad/good as much.
7. Top players say (off topic). . . Top players are not the go to source of character balance. They have tremendous talent in developing strategies, tactics, reading opponents, picking tools that they feel are good, mental fortitude, and execution. They also at this stage of a games life are focused on their main or a handful of characters. What they are not doing is trying to balance the game as best as possible. They have a wealth of knowledge of their best character, but at this stage they do not have every match up yet. They are focusing on improving their play more and more through tournaments and practice and discussion. These experiences typically tailor their practice sessions. If @FOREVER KING gets 3-0'd by a Scorpion, he will be figuring out how to beat Scorpion the next day. He will not be making a thread about the virtues of Scorpion and demanding nerfs. He is not a good source for balancing the game. If you bodied any of the top players they will always ask this, "What is that, and how do I beat it?" If you guys want to get good do this instead of bitching about a character and assuming you know the match up etc. already. If you simply want to try to balance the game, then discuss specifics. The details are important, again shit is not obvious.
In conclusion, stuff. . . Discuss match ups more, learn more, the best characters may keep being the best. Give more concrete evidence as to why this is and break down why it is good/bad in this game. Lab, play, discuss. Emphasis on DISCUSS. So far in this thread, "oh no this character is too good it is obvious." "I know this character is on the bad list, buff them." Get off your high horses and realize no one knows what the fuck is going on yet.
@GGA Jeremiah sorry to derail the thread some, but I was hoping for meaningful information in this thread, but so far just have people speculating without details about any kind of balance issues.
