For those of you who play non-NRS fighting games...

[RiBBz22]

I think NRS actually did a good job patching and adjusting the balance of this game in an overall sense. The problem is that the introduction of the DLC came way too late within the time that NRS was still supporting the game with patches. This this is the case they were probably not able to be evaluated properly when you measure it against other characters. I wish they would just release all of their proposed DLC within the first 2-3 months and actually have some time to take a look at the game and balance it when the roster is complete.

 

[d3v]

I think NRS actually did a good job patching and adjusting the balance of this game in an overall sense. The problem is that the introduction of the DLC came way too late within the time that NRS was still supporting the game with patches. This this is the case they were probably not able to be evaluated properly when you measure it against other characters. I wish they would just release all of their proposed DLC within the first 2-3 months and actually have some time to take a look at the game and balance it when the roster is complete.

This would have all be avoided if they did what other developers do and just patched the game 6-12 months down the line instead of these multiple, knee-jerk patches.

 

[RiBBz22]

This would have all be avoided if they did what other developers do and just patched the game 6-12 months down the line instead of these multiple, knee-jerk patches.

Well yeah obviously, what I am saying though is that if you are only going to support the game for 6 months you have to get the DLC in there earlier to give yourself the best chance to balance the game in the 6 month cycle.

 

[TotteryManx]

In my opinion Capcom does a really good job supporting Street Fighter. First of all, they have released 3 versions of SFIV since release. This includes not only balance changes, but new characters as well. USFIV will be no different. It will include new characters and stages as well. Also, I like that Capcom lets their games flourish before releasing updates. They do not patch the game immediately, which I respect.

 

[Temjiin]

The top 5 in the game is probably the most difficult to choose, I dont think there is even a solid one, many characters are really good. Viola is really retarded, but she is not as easy to use as mitsu or regular pat, those two are braindead.

Ever heard of Pyrrah?

 

[Heroic_Legacy]

The Big Question:

How does NRS compare with other FG creators? (Long term game support/patches)


NRS gets criticism for patching their games for the first 6 months, and then start working on another game.

• For MK9 this led to Kabal... you know where that's going.

• In I:GAU it might lead to a reign of MMH, we don't know yet.
• Several other imbalances that I'm sure you can think of.

Now, I only play NRS games seriously, but this is just something I wondered about. So I ask you, people who know what it's like playing a non-NRS fighting game.

• Do any other creators support their game for longer than NRS?

• Has history shown that patching a game for longer than 6 months has a significant positive effect on the game's balance in tournaments?
• Do "OP" characters / imbalances always emerge no matter when the patches stop?

My thoughts are that the patching is done in an economically sound way. As patching costs time and money, and does not bring in revenue. So its done as infrequently as possible, while still taking care of big problems in the games early life. However for people like myself who want to play and watch a relatively balanced game, this style of patching could be a draw-back.

-NRS has one thing that no other developers out there in the fighting game community have, and that's love for their community. Most other devs will just sit back and count money (or lack thereof since they're developing fighting games) and laugh at the people complaining about bugs and imbalances. NRS will actually go so far as to be active on forums and talk to people on twitter rather than dodge every question and not respond at all towards the community at large. This is the good and the bad though I guess. The bad comes from the fact they're so in tune with their community, they can be spooked by it when said community brings pitchforks/torches and riot over crossups. Every other FG community during the Scorpion fiasco looked, pointed, and laughed hysterically at how a company had their backs bent backward because some people got mad at the fact a character had a crossup attack. No other dev would do that. They'd sit there and tell you to get better before complaining. NRS did that to an extent, but patching Scorpion based on community outcry is pretty horrific. Makes me believe that they'd rather appease fans than believe in what they've made.

-No other fighting game franchise has had more than two balance patches/bug fixes before moving onto another edition/version of the same game, so it's pretty hard to say what impact patches have on tournament when really MK9 and Injustice set precedent on the matter. Generally most patches are within the first two months of the game and then the game rocks while the developers decide whether or not to make a new game or just revision it and sell it again. There have been plenty of revisions of games that happen so I'd have to question whether or not those count as Injustice patches. There's probably been more versions of MK9/Injustice than there have been fighting games in total the past 3 years. Whether or not that's a good thing is personal opinion. But the point remains is that if you had to compare an Injustice/MK9 patch to a full revisitation of a game, is it equal or is it slightly weighted in the favor of the game with new wrapping and disc art? Who's to say. The closest I can think of a game that still has a following that still is patching, is Skullgirls. That game came out more than a year ago and is still getting updates. Did it change the game's balance in tournaments? The game has no tournaments I couldn't tell you. (Ba dum tish) What I can tell you, is that the game has a thriving online community. Maybe we'll see offline tournaments for the game again in the future. Till then, it's pretty boring since offense is so utterly awful in that game.

-"OP" characters will not always exist, but tiers will exist. And if tiers exist, better characters exist.

 

[rurounikenshin]

Ever heard of Pyrrah?

Yup, Pyrrha is pretty braindead too, however she is different kind of braindead, Pyrrha requires proper MU knowledge because she plays in a defensive way (most of the time). But when Mitsu or Pat hit you, your are un their land, does not matter who you are.

 

[Crathen]

This would have all be avoided if they did what other developers do and just patched the game 6-12 months down the line instead of these multiple, knee-jerk patches.

I don't buy this , give me an example of patching that hasn't brought up discussion / ( supposed ) imbalance in recent fighting games , MvC3 "Sentinel" patch , every iteration of SFIV ( Vanilla had unblockable ultra setups , SSF4 unblockables , AE Yun dumbness ) , SFXTK , SCV Viola , BlazBlue CT , CS12 , CSX and CP and so on.

Injustice has only gotten better with every patch yet i still see people on sites quoting things like Deathstroke / Scorpion kneejerk reactions and acting like it didn't fix things like sweeps into OTGs or add quick rematch functions.

Patching things frequently isnt a bad thing per se , let's not be a bunch of sheeps.

 

[Temjiin]

Yup, Pyrrha is pretty braindead too, however she is different kind of braindead, Pyrrha requires proper MU knowledge because she plays in a defensive way (most of the time). But when Mitsu or Pat hit you, your are un their land, does not matter who you are.

Mitsu is still highly punishable on 2KBE which is the only thing conditioning you to block low, where Pyrrah can win with literally just BB, 3B, 1K and stab punish any mistakes. I hate Mitsu deeply but consider Pyrrah far more autopilot. He has to take more risks to open you up.

 

[A New Angel Is Advent]

Coming from anime (Ex-BlazBlue, currently Persona and Aquapazza) each patch is basically a new game in a sequel every year or so. P4 for example has never had any post console release patches and I prefer that method. It makes players search for tech to overcome bad MUs since you know you'll be playing the same game for a year. The other thing I like is when characters are rebalanced if they lose a tool,they gain two more so nerfs are usually not at the price of making a character more limited/boring. What I think NRS does better than anyone else is how they support their games for so long after release. Even though re-balancing 6 times is kind of a joke, their attention to bug fixes and paying attention to events is refreshing and generally pretty awesome.

 

[Mst]

NRS should just space out there patches if they know that there is only a limited amount of patches they can do for one game.

 

[Vagrant]

Almost all fighting games are unbalanced.

Thats not why I switched to Capcom. I simply switched because they have the bigger numbers.

MK was the one game I was unquestionably loyal to. People let the game die so I just moved to the games with the most competition when I realized IGAU wasn't going to be that.

 

[Vagrant]

As for the constant patching... meh i dont think it really makes a difference how frequently you do it. It matters what you change.

 

[A New Angel Is Advent]

A discrepancy in balance comes at the price of variety/uniqueness in characters. To me it's worth it as long as every matchup is winnable. A perfectly balanced game would be as exciting as always playing mirror matches or matches just as boring. There are only a handful of absolutely broken characters in fg history (SC4 hilde comes to mind). Short of that, between the two extremes, I'd always prefer variety over even matchups.

 

[cyke_out]

I personally enjoy the capcom/arc systems style of patching. An almost yearly update with new added characters. This gives the game time to breathe and the new characters bring in new match ups to work on.

 

[CamChattic]

The Big Question:

How does NRS compare with other FG creators? (Long term game support/patches)


NRS gets criticism for patching their games for the first 6 months, and then start working on another game.

• For MK9 this led to Kabal... you know where that's going.

• In I:GAU it might lead to a reign of MMH, we don't know yet.
• Several other imbalances that I'm sure you can think of.

Now, I only play NRS games seriously, but this is just something I wondered about. So I ask you, people who know what it's like playing a non-NRS fighting game.

• Do any other creators support their game for longer than NRS?

• Has history shown that patching a game for longer than 6 months has a significant positive effect on the game's balance in tournaments?
• Do "OP" characters / imbalances always emerge no matter when the patches stop?

My thoughts are that the patching is done in an economically sound way. As patching costs time and money, and does not bring in revenue. So its done as infrequently as possible, while still taking care of big problems in the games early life. However for people like myself who want to play and watch a relatively balanced game, this style of patching could be a draw-back.

Ok so the main reason Why NRS gets flak for its patching practices is because they are front loaded I'm guessing they might have an actual deal that involves them only working on post release content 6 mos after the fact this might have to do with them being from the old school and not having the experience in drawing up a development deal that keeps them working on other projects, keeps them getting paid, doesnt screw up their studios overall pipeline. NRS has a habit of doing 3-4 patches within the first month- 2 mos then doing one in the middle of the cycle then one final patch. Which even without the complication of DLC characters is nonsensical. If your going to make changes to the game you have to let people play it and see how the players use those tools. Really though the true evil is the dlc characters if your going to grow the cast 10 to 25% if your a fighting game developer you know that adding just one character requires you to retool the whole cast in meaningful ways around that character everytime to release your last character and your last patch simultaneously kinda shows you either dont know what your doing or your just not in a position to do the right thing.

SF Obviously supports their games for long times and im actually fond of the way they do their updates honestly the updates do not cost more than staying current with NRS games. Lets look at Super
for 40 dollars you got:
12 new characters so even if you just count those characters your looking at 3 dollars a character beating the NRS standard of 5
then they added i believe 5 new stages
new music and 2 sets of vas for all the new characters.
The game was completely rebalanced and thouroughly tested in arcades before being brought over
Replays were made better they added channels
new online modes where added
new mechanics were added via the second ultra

yeah 40 bucks was a steal


then lets look at AE
If you had Super it was 15
If not it retailed at 40 which was a steal since you had nothing invested in the base game to begin with
online was adjusted not as dramatically as in super but follow function was added and changes were made in video storing
4 new characters more in line with nrs standard season pass
but nrs doesnt make new music tracks and give multiligual voice options to their characters so... value
but again heres the kicker
Rigorously playtested all across arcades before being finalized and shipped to console

2012 was just all balance stuff but it was the first free patch and it put another 2 years of healthy tournament life into the game

now ultra is coming and again
15 bucks
40 if you dont have it plus buying it retail gets you all of the legacy costume dlc
complete loketested balance overhaul
completely new mechanics
red focus
delayed wakeup
double ultra
5 new characters

So yeah while you may have to go into your pocket to stay current with SF4 this has been a 5 year process has real value compared to other update/dlc schemes and done nothing but improve the quality of the game.

That being said there will always be an optimal strategy the only way to mitigate that is through constant support.

 

[Tony at Home]

Kabal and Kenshi are still said to break the game and make it unplayable. that's so silly. Every fighting game has top tiers that run the show, yet they are still able to be taken down. Tom was able to take out kabals and cyraxs with sub-zero, that's saying something..

Matchups assume the two players are of equal skill.

Tom Brady wins sub-zero mismatches because he is far better than the person he's playing against.

If two players of equal skill are fighting, and one is Sub Zero, and the other is Kabal. Kabal wins. And that's not just being slightly better than the other play, to win in a mismatch like that, you need to be MUCH better than the player using the stronger character, and it's not fair.

Also, try Sub-Zero vs Kenshi.

 

[AK Walker]

I'm an old Tekken guy. Started playing competitive with Tekken 4. Namco has never patched a Tekken game ever to my memory. Once that Tekken was released that was it. Capcom always released another version of Street Fighter instead of patching. NRS is the only one that patches fighting games like this. The TYM community acts like spoiled brats IMO. Over at Tekken Zaibatsu or SRK people don't bitch and go ape shit like people do here. The players over there know that Namco or Capcom don't go on the boards and don't listen. The fact that NRS listens to players is a good and bad thing. Players over here don't know how lucky they are.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

I'm an old Tekken guy. Started playing competitive with Tekken 4. Namco has never patched a Tekken game ever to my memory. Once that Tekken was released that was it. Capcom always released another version of Street Fighter instead of patching. NRS is the only one that patches fighting games like this. The TYM community acts like spoiled brats IMO. Over at Tekken Zaibatsu or SRK people don't bitch and go ape shit like people do here. The players over there know that Namco or Capcom don't go on the boards and don't listen. The fact that NRS listens to players is a good and bad thing. Players over here don't know how lucky they are.

At least tekken makes "sense" in a physical stand point. I personally <3 the crush system, and wish other games used it more.

 

[CamChattic]

I'm an old Tekken guy. Started playing competitive with Tekken 4. Namco has never patched a Tekken game ever to my memory. Once that Tekken was released that was it. Capcom always released another version of Street Fighter instead of patching. NRS is the only one that patches fighting games like this. The TYM community acts like spoiled brats IMO. Over at Tekken Zaibatsu or SRK people don't bitch and go ape shit like people do here. The players over there know that Namco or Capcom don't go on the boards and don't listen. The fact that NRS listens to players is a good and bad thing. Players over here don't know how lucky they are.

this is very wrong Tekken has always had multiple versions prior to console release they may have not always been rebranded like sf has but theyve been there. T4 was the only one that WWASNT patched tekken 2 had rev.B 3 went up to rev.C i believe 5 had 5 5.1 (which consoles did see via greatest hits) dark ressurrection then there was 6, br which was released on console which console did get 2 patches ttt2 had vanilla, unlimited, then Console release which had 2 patches so Namco definitely supports the game.

 

[AK Walker]

At least tekken makes "sense" in a physical stand point. I personally <3 the crush system, and wish other games used it more.

I hate the crush system. I fucking HATE that system mechanic. It's the main reason I stopped playing. Moves already had crush properties before they put that shit in.

 

[AK Walker]

this is very wrong Tekken has always had multiple versions prior to console release they may have not always been rebranded like sf has but theyve been there. T4 was the only one that WWASNT patched tekken 2 had rev.B 3 went up to rev.C i believe 5 had 5 5.1 (which consoles did see via greatest hits) dark ressurrection then there was 6, br which was released on console which console did get 2 patches ttt2 had vanilla, unlimited, then Console release which had 2 patches so Namco definitely supports the game.

Prior to console release is the key phrase. Once it came out on PS2 and PS3 that was it. That is what I was referring to. Should of clarified.

 

[Jeffreys]

I play a street fighter, marvel, mk, injustice, and persona, some soulcal too.
I think the nrs community complains way too much. Kabal and Kenshi are still said to break the game and make it unplayable. that's so silly. Every fighting game has top tiers that run the show, yet they are still able to be taken down. Tom was able to take out kabals and cyraxs with sub-zero, that's saying something. I feel like Kabal and MMH for whatever reason have this "Broken" title that everyone just keeps throwing out whenever they are brought up.
For MK10, I would like to see NRS take there time and put out a good fighter with enough depth to keep people around. I feel that they really excel in the "casual" part of their games; story mode, challenges, mini games, etc. however, they should consider making patches after for the people that are sticking around to play their game.
Again I think the complaining from this community is the ultimate downfall of NRS games. Marvel received one legit patch "UMVC" yet it remains the most hype fighter out despite it being utterly broken, far beyond Kabal and MMH. Just my thoughts.

Yes you can beat a Kabal or Kenshi as Sub Zero, it doesn't change the fact that Kenshi wins the matchup 8-2 or Kabal 7-3ing Sub Zero.

Also it is cute to use Tom of all people as your main example when he is the person most Critical about MK9's balance.

 

[Tony at Home]

Tekken has always been pretty balanced but they usually test it in Asia for like a year before world launch

Tekken 6's balance was awful, from beginning to end and no patches/versions helped it.

Evo 2011 results (so using the most patched version of Tekken 6)
1) BOB
2) BOB
3) LAW
4) LAW
5) BOB
6) Bryan
7) BOB
8) Kazuya

 

[MortySeinfeld]

What I don't get is how over the course of 1 week everybody on these boards seems to be crying about Martian Manhunter and how he is ruining the state of the game.

Admittedly I haven't been paying too much attention to the tournament scene around this game, but last I checked MMH has not been dominating anything; Much less placing top 3 to top 8.

I would like to challenge some of the more vocal players within this community (AK Pig Of The Hut) to begin playing Martian Manhunter to prove that he is as much of an issue as people are implying he is.

I do believe MMH is a strong character, but I do not feel his is leagues above the rest of the cast.

If he really is a problem, people should learn Batman.