Best balanced competitive video game ever?

[God Confirm]

Gathering opinions on what game has achieved the best balance of all time. Doesn't have to be a fighter. Can be over any genre, so long as competitive balance is relevant. Doesn't have to have a massive scene, I think it would be good to have a look at what the game of your choice does right.

To clarify, by balanced I mean you can pick any character or race or car or whatever available and be equally as competitive as anyone else, even if the playstyle is different. Don't pick games where there is no customizational choice, as its pointless as they are obviously all equally balanced.


I'll kick it off by voting for StarCraft II, which over the years has been so finely tuned its incredible. It had a big expansion semi-recently which may have offset this a little, bit it will get back there. Even though some of the players non-stop whine, it's a direct result of certain bad examples of community leaders. I think NRS community suffers from this too, although we obviously still have balance issues galore, they are heavily exaggerated by some.

 

[myri]

Gathering opinions on what game has achieved the best balance of all time. Doesn't have to be a fighter. Can be over any genre, so long as competitive balance is relevant. Doesn't have to have a massive scene, I think it would be good to have a look at what the game of your choice does right.

Team Fortress 2 hands down, never a balance complaint ever in that competitive scene in my four years playing. We do use a white list and only allow certain items though which helps.

 

[kabelfritz]

id say the killer instinct demo that only had sabrewulf.

on a serious note, splinter cell double agents balance was pretty ridiculously good concerning that spies and mercs had completely different game mechanics, from first person vs 3rd person view to unarmed stealth vs heavy firepower. it was never ever a matter of class who won, always only a matter of skill (or lag ). nobody on a high level ever complained about the balance.

 

[AK XEN0M0RPH]

id say the killer instinct demo that only had sabrewulf.

on a serious note, splinter cell double agents balance was pretty ridiculously good concerning that spies and mercs had completely different game mechanics, from first person vs 3rd person view to unarmed stealth vs heavy firepower. it was never ever a matter of class who won, always only a matter of skill (or lag ). nobody on a high level ever complained about the balance.

I liked Pandora Tomorrow more personally. 2v2 and the spies could shoot electro darts. Not to mention the maps felt more fun

 

[Jynks]

Quake Live 1v1... /thread

 

[Evil Canadian]

Chess

Baseball is pretty balanced too.

For fighters its most likely vf4 evolution worst match I recall offhand was jeffrey vs jacky being 4-6.

Wish I could say VF5: FS but taka throws a monkey wrench into characters with good taka combos, and characters with bad taka combos(He counted as his own weight class, and your character had to throw their normal BnB's out the window against him and have specific combos for him, some people could do even better than normal like Sarah, but some people just got jack shit).

 

[kabelfritz]

I liked Pandora Tomorrow more personally. 2v2 and the spies could shoot electro darts. Not to mention the maps felt more fun

i knew this would come up . still, talking only about balance, double agent was godlike. a lot of people liked PT and CT more and DA was quite a shift, but then there were lots of discussions about OP spies in the older games.

 

[NSR]

Quake 3.
That game relies purely on skill, knowing each map ins and outs, having good reflexes and aim, knowing each weapon's strengths and weaknesses and when to apply each weapon in a specific situation, not to mention additional tricks like rocket jumping, plasma gun wall climbing that you gotta learn. It's also fast as fuck.

About the only complaint I have is that barring TDM, it's not that oriented towards team style gameplay, in that there's barely any team mode content (CTF in particular) The game was purely made for deathmatch FFA and 1 vs 1.

But holy fuck is it GOOD.

 

[Pan1cMode]

Chess

White always has an advantage though. It's a pretty big balance issue actually.

 

[God Confirm]

Also Chess isn't a video game, at best its a boardgame adapted to be played on the comuter but still not a video game, so not relevant. Same with sports too (but not sports video games), lets just focus on things created to be video games

 

[navaroNe]

Gathering opinions on what game has achieved the best balance of all time. Doesn't have to be a fighter. Can be over any genre, so long as competitive balance is relevant. Doesn't have to have a massive scene, I think it would be good to have a look at what the game of your choice does right.

To clarify, by balanced I mean you can pick any character or race or car or whatever available and be equally as competitive as anyone else, even if the playstyle is different


I'll kick it off by voting for StarCraft II, which over the years has been so finely tuned its incredible. It had a big expansion semi-recently which may have offset this a little, bit it will get back there. Even though some of the players non-stop whine, it's a direct result of certain bad examples of community leaders. I think NRS community suffers from this too, although we obviously still have balance issues galore, they are heavily exaggerated by some.

I'd put my vote on super smash bros melee. The top tier characters in the game are strong like any fighting game really but just the overall play style feels very balanced with lots of offensive and defensive options for every character

 

[SaltShaker]

Super packed roster, nearly every character was viable, highly fun competitive game.

 

[Smoke_Of_Finland]

NHL 96 . The 16 bit Sega version. Being able to take control of the goalie and mow down the puck carrier prevents the over abuse of semi-guaranteed glitch goals. Most teams are viable when played with no line changes and there are no OP players (unlike NHL 97 with the skill moves and Pavel Bure). Eric Lindros being really hard to knock down doesn't matter because he is slow as fuck... and there is always the option to perform the goalie takedown if necessary lololol.

 

[Eldriken]

Quake 3.
That game relies purely on skill, knowing each map ins and outs, having good reflexes and aim, knowing each weapon's strengths and weaknesses and when to apply each weapon in a specific situation, not to mention additional tricks like rocket jumping, plasma gun wall climbing that you gotta learn. It's also fast as fuck.

About the only complaint I have is that barring TDM, it's not that oriented towards team style gameplay, in that there's barely any team mode content (CTF in particular) The game was purely made for deathmatch FFA and 1 vs 1.

But holy fuck is it GOOD.

Quake 3 is sooooo fucking fun. But man, FUCK anyone who was skilled with the railgun. >=O

 

[Wigy]

I'd put my vote on super smash bros melee. The top tier characters in the game are strong like any fighting game really but just the overall play style feels very balanced with lots of offensive and defensive options for every character

Arent fox and falco or whatever hes called pretty OP?

 

[Darth Mao]

Bomberman.

 

[ismael4790]

Pong

 

[SaSSolino]

Team Fortress 2 hands down, never a balance complaint ever in that competitive scene in my four years playing. We do use a white list and only allow certain items though which helps.

I was going to vote the same, however the patches kind of killed that.

 

[DC4-3]

Mario Kart Double Dash

 

[Johnny Based Cage]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

 

[ShepherdOfFire]

MK9

 

[Juxtapose]

Great idea for a thread @WB-chan ! In terms of game balance, I honestly think Blizzard Entertainment does an excellent job with their games over time.

The original Starcraft, for example, was extremely balanced as was its expansion set.

My vote would have to go to Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. That's actually the only game I've ever played publicly competitively, and in any RTS I'm a Random player. At the height of my "career" in that game, not once did I ever feel I couldn't perform with any of the four Races. The losses I suffered were always simply because I was outplayed or due to my own shortcomings with some of the Races.

Since they all were different, it's only natural to be stronger with some and weaker with others. My best by the end of my career was Orc and my worst was Undead. Ironically Undead was and is my favourite.

 

[Daemantalo]

League of Legends

 

[ghostwriteous]

NBA Street Vol. 2

 

[Linkuei82]

Divekick