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Do Balanced Fighting Games Equate To Fun?

JBeezYBabY

Mr. Righteous
Throughout the years, we've been blessed with Legendary titles from Marvel Vs Capcom, MK, Street Fighter, KOF, Tekken, Smash Bros and the list goes on and on.

Apparently, Uncle JBeezY has been seeing alot of talk about balance in these titles.

A couple of questions to ponder, what does balance mean to you? And if a game is completely balanced, does that make it a fun game if everybody has the same tool set ?Question mark?

Let's discuss. :l:qtl:D:qtr:r
 

GLoRToR

Positive Poster!
In a sense they do. It's more fun knowing that it's up to you how well you'll do and you can pick whichever character you enjoy. There are different ways to achieve balance, and it's a designer's nightmare to find ways to achieve it AND make it fun. If you look at Tekken or DoA you'll see some good balance. You'll also see that those games don't have wanton projectile play and special moves that break the game. They do have their own issues though.
 

JBeezYBabY

Mr. Righteous
In a sense they do. It's more fun knowing that it's up to you how well you'll do and you can pick whichever character you enjoy. There are different ways to achieve balance, and it's a designer's nightmare to find ways to achieve it AND make it fun. If you look at Tekken or DoA you'll see some good balance. You'll also see that those games don't have wanton projectile play and special moves that break the game. They do have their own issues though.
Tekken would be the best example cuz even tho Tekken 7 is meh....its still thriving to this day and that game always has been...probably the most balanced fighting game today.
 

HellblazerHawkman

Confused Thanagarian
The only people who would say no to this are people who play the OP characters. You'll never hear a Stryker player (MK9) talk about how perfect and fun the game is, but you sure as fuck will hear that from a Kabal player
 
Tekken would be the best example cuz even tho Tekken 7 is meh....its still thriving to this day and that game always has been...probably the most balanced fighting game today.
That's arguable. I would say Vampire Savior has always been largely considered the most balanced fighting game. You hear it from a lot of the old heads out of JP and even the NA scene
 

Mikemetroid

Who hired this guy, WTF?
I mean, I like to look at the positive side of things. Since YOUR ASS DON'T HARDLY EVER CONTRIBUTES TO POSTS, its great to see that MY THREAD made you speak. See!? Positive :D
I just think its kinda pointless because its subjective. Most people cant even agree if the game is balanced or not.
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
I’ve made this point before, but balance is overrated imo. If you want any sort of character uniqueness, depth or variety, the game will inevitably be unbalanced. And the more characters, the more unbalanced it will be.

Balance is the wrong thing people should want. What you should want is character viability, which is often conflated with balance. Everyone wants to focus on arbitrary MU numbers which aren’t nearly as important as the emphasis and attention they’re given.
 

AZ MotherBrain

If you believe enough, -7 could be +7
I think people spend too much time bitching about balance that the fun aspect of it gets ruin for them for numerous reasons, most of which I think are more personal reasons than problems with gameplay.

I think playing a game solely online will really ruin a game for you. To me if you somebody who solely just plays online, your not getting the actual experience with the game. Locals are absolutely amazing. Players will benefit so much more with playing offline with friends, talking and communicating about the game and how on another can improve. Say there is something that just bodies me in sfv, I know I can go to my local “X” player, get fucked by him, but yet the experience will be enjoyable because they will tell me what I’m really losing to, my habit, and what to look for in the match up.

Another reason is lobbing. Without a doubt most of the FGC doesn’t lab correctly. It may seem boring to try to practice something besides combos, but practicing meaties, hit confirms etc is highly important to not only level up but make the game enjoyable. I think knowledge is powerful and when you gain more knowledge in the lab and apply it to your game, the game will become much more fun.

Also play what you love. If you really have a passion for a game, you’ll play it regardless
 

Roy Arkon

I will leave my seal on you!
I don't think that balance really means that much for fighting games. That's because fighting games are action-based and dynamic, which means that as long as you like a character and it's gameplay so much and you have such a strong connection with that char, you can do wonders with that char regardless on it's placement on tiers. and regardless the overall level of broken stuff in the game. For example, there was an MVC2 player named Joe Zaza, who used Bone Claw Wolverine despite MVC2 being the only game in the MVC series that had Wolverine in both versions of him as a mid-tier character only.

Of course that balance can always help, and if the game is very balanced there is no reason not to accept it, but you don't need to give that much attention to the balance or tiers in a fighting game. No fighting game is gonna have a perfect balance anyway, that will be pretty much impossible. And to mention that anyone can always find some really crazy stuff with a char if they lab that char enough. So put the emphasis on the character itself and it's playstyle.
 

villainous monk

Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord.
Throughout the years, we've been blessed with Legendary titles from Marvel Vs Capcom, MK, Street Fighter, KOF, Tekken, Smash Bros and the list goes on and on.

Apparently, Uncle JBeezY has been seeing alot of talk about balance in these titles.

A couple of questions to ponder, what does balance mean to you? And if a game is completely balanced, does that make it a fun game if everybody has the same tool set ?Question mark?

Let's discuss. :l:qtl:D:qtr:r
I think games can be fun with the so called phrase (balanced) that is thrown around like a football.

Like not to knock you or the thread but what is a balanced game vs a game that is not balanced?

What's balanced?

It's all subjective and varies from game to game and person to person.

Need a specific example but then again it varies from game to game and person to person. Kinda like what mikemetroid said.

Then you say legendary now I'm going way back to the good ole days of non AC funky smelling arcades...




Beezy always be on some next level shit;)

Damn. Got a brotha thinking.