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Is it possible to have a perfectly balanced fighter?

Braindead

Braindead

I want Kronika to step on my face
GGA pimpimjim said:
http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-504#post-18792817

Time to flip a table and do some game design school.

Balance is a subtractive design element; in other words, balance is the absence of certain things. Specifically, balance is the absence of factors that degenerate asymmetry.

Balance is the absence of:
  1. Unfairness
  2. Polarization
  3. Homogenization
Unfairness is the strict superiority of options. Melee Fox, Brawl Meta Knight, and Smash 4 Diddy are unfair, which means they are simply better than the other characters on average. Unfairness is the simplest and easiest to identify problem, but it is only only element of balance.

Polarization is certain specific characters beating certain other specific character, regardless of average balance. (aka "counters") Melee Sheik, Brawl DDD, and Smash 4 Little Mac are very polarized characters. Polarization takes more time to identify, and is harder to address.

Homogenization is the absence of asymmetry in the first place. This is the most subjective and difficult to quantify element, but it just as (if not more) important, because it defeats the point of pursuing everything else.


Any two elements can be easily addressed by sacrificing the other, but none of these are acceptable:
  • You can trivially depolarize any game while preserving character diversity if you just accept blatant unfairness.
  • You can trivially solve any unfairness in any game while preserving character diversity if you just make a ring of pure counters.
  • You can trivially remove all unfairness and polarization by making everyone the same character.
None of these games are balanced. If we insist that any of these cases are semantically "balanced", then we have forfeited all meaningful function of the word so the point as moot. At best we could say these cases are "trivially balanced", like the trivial "solution" of a math problem that isn't actually a useful solution at all.


There is perceptually the most confusion from amateur game designers about polarization. Some go so far as to put polarization on a pedestal, actually making imbalance a design goal. Hard facts:
  • Rock-paper-scissors is a terrible game.
  • Rock-paper-scissors is not a balanced game. (As described above)
  • True counters are bad for a game.
  • Hard counters are bad for a game.
  • Soft counters are bad for a game.
  • All the deepest matchups in virtually any competitive game are 5:5.
  • Ideal balance is a matchup chart of entirely 5:5.
  • Yes, this (absolute zero polarization) is impossible, just like absolute zero unfairness is impossible.
  • But this is still the only correct goal.
If any StarCraft matchup exceeds 55:45, that represents a huge balance problem to the game. Blizzard cannot turn Starcraft into rock-paper-scissors and call it a competitive game. 0% of competitive games should be won at the character select screen. They should not even be 10% won at the character select screen.

Blizzard and Riot have the biggest balance design teams in the world. The vast majority of their time and resources goes towards fighting polarization. David Sirlin obsessively balances his games, and spends the vast majority of that time on polarization. When we made BBrawl, probably 90% of our time was dealing with polarization factors.

Unfairness is, in comparison, quite easy.


Final note: The word "counter" is overloaded. We have been talking about top-level, out-of-game-selected elements--like characters in a fighting game, or races in an RTS.

This does not apply at all to local components, such as a fighting game move, a card game card, or an RTS unit. It's okay for ZSS paralyzer to "counter" or "answer" certain moves. (While it's bad for ZSS to have a 9:1 against Fox, or even a 6:4.)

Team-composition games are tricky (Pokemon, LoL, TF2), since characters are only components of your actual team, just like ZSS paralyzer is just a component of her full character. This means they are somewhere in between, resulting in some weird non-zero target of polarization. Some games target more polarization (Pokemon) and some less (LoL), but either way it is a separate and unrelated topic.


tl;dr - Polarization is a component of balance and strictly bad regarding top-level elements of competitive games. It is neither good nor the lesser of any evils. Stop wishing that your intricate and deep competitive games get turned into character select screen rock-paper-scissors.
Click to expand...
Read this, people.
 
huber

huber

Noob
Fighting games are fun and all but when I think "balanced" or "competitive" I look no further than the genius designers at Cootie Games. Churning out balanced deep games time and time again such as Don't Break the Ice, and Ants in the Pants. No imbalances. Ice cubes? All the same size. Hammers? Exactly the same. Does each player choose different ants with different mechanics? Hell no. Do we toss the ants in different pants? What kind of idiot designer would do that? Until fighting game developers can make timeless fun games without messy imbalances like character select screens they're just for fun.
 
Bomborge

Bomborge

Aspiring scrub
It would require for all characters to be the same and no one would want to play that. Sure, you can give characters all the tools they would need to get around all kinds of playstyles, but even then there would be bad matchups for each characters unless again, they all had the same exact tools to deal with each other. All we can hope for is a game where all characters are viable and there are as few as possible lopsided matchups.
 
buyacushun

buyacushun

Normalize grab immunity.
BatmanBeatsCap said:
Thank you. Once I have it more organized I'll make a thread dedicated to it. I'm going to depend on the community a lot in the design stage...
Click to expand...
There's a thread somwhere on TYM where the OP asked people their thoughts on certain aspects on fighting game design. I think it would help you a bit.

GGA pimpimjim said:
http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-504#post-18792817

Time to flip a table and do some game design school.

Balance is a subtractive design element; in other words, balance is the absence of certain things. Specifically, balance is the absence of factors that degenerate asymmetry.

Balance is the absence of:
  1. Unfairness
  2. Polarization
  3. Homogenization
Unfairness is the strict superiority of options. Melee Fox, Brawl Meta Knight, and Smash 4 Diddy are unfair, which means they are simply better than the other characters on average. Unfairness is the simplest and easiest to identify problem, but it is only only element of balance.

Polarization is certain specific characters beating certain other specific character, regardless of average balance. (aka "counters") Melee Sheik, Brawl DDD, and Smash 4 Little Mac are very polarized characters. Polarization takes more time to identify, and is harder to address.

Homogenization is the absence of asymmetry in the first place. This is the most subjective and difficult to quantify element, but it just as (if not more) important, because it defeats the point of pursuing everything else.


Any two elements can be easily addressed by sacrificing the other, but none of these are acceptable:
  • You can trivially depolarize any game while preserving character diversity if you just accept blatant unfairness.
  • You can trivially solve any unfairness in any game while preserving character diversity if you just make a ring of pure counters.
  • You can trivially remove all unfairness and polarization by making everyone the same character.
None of these games are balanced. If we insist that any of these cases are semantically "balanced", then we have forfeited all meaningful function of the word so the point as moot. At best we could say these cases are "trivially balanced", like the trivial "solution" of a math problem that isn't actually a useful solution at all.


There is perceptually the most confusion from amateur game designers about polarization. Some go so far as to put polarization on a pedestal, actually making imbalance a design goal. Hard facts:
  • Rock-paper-scissors is a terrible game.
  • Rock-paper-scissors is not a balanced game. (As described above)
  • True counters are bad for a game.
  • Hard counters are bad for a game.
  • Soft counters are bad for a game.
  • All the deepest matchups in virtually any competitive game are 5:5.
  • Ideal balance is a matchup chart of entirely 5:5.
  • Yes, this (absolute zero polarization) is impossible, just like absolute zero unfairness is impossible.
  • But this is still the only correct goal.
If any StarCraft matchup exceeds 55:45, that represents a huge balance problem to the game. Blizzard cannot turn Starcraft into rock-paper-scissors and call it a competitive game. 0% of competitive games should be won at the character select screen. They should not even be 10% won at the character select screen.

Blizzard and Riot have the biggest balance design teams in the world. The vast majority of their time and resources goes towards fighting polarization. David Sirlin obsessively balances his games, and spends the vast majority of that time on polarization. When we made BBrawl, probably 90% of our time was dealing with polarization factors.

Unfairness is, in comparison, quite easy.


Final note: The word "counter" is overloaded. We have been talking about top-level, out-of-game-selected elements--like characters in a fighting game, or races in an RTS.

This does not apply at all to local components, such as a fighting game move, a card game card, or an RTS unit. It's okay for ZSS paralyzer to "counter" or "answer" certain moves. (While it's bad for ZSS to have a 9:1 against Fox, or even a 6:4.)

Team-composition games are tricky (Pokemon, LoL, TF2), since characters are only components of your actual team, just like ZSS paralyzer is just a component of her full character. This means they are somewhere in between, resulting in some weird non-zero target of polarization. Some games target more polarization (Pokemon) and some less (LoL), but either way it is a separate and unrelated topic.


tl;dr - Polarization is a component of balance and strictly bad regarding top-level elements of competitive games. It is neither good nor the lesser of any evils. Stop wishing that your intricate and deep competitive games get turned into character select screen rock-paper-scissors.
Click to expand...
That was a fun read. Thanks for that!
 
GAV

GAV

Resolution through knowledge and resolve.
The real question is this; Do most players want balance?

The answer to that is very simply - no.

Most players either want a few overpowered characters - so they can pick one without too much backlash...

--or--

They want their one character choice to be overpowered so they can downplay it, win, and tell everyone else to git gud.
 
GAV

GAV

Resolution through knowledge and resolve.
huber said:
Fighting games are fun and all but when I think "balanced" or "competitive" I look no further than the genius designers at Cootie Games. Churning out balanced deep games time and time again such as Don't Break the Ice, and Ants in the Pants. No imbalances. Ice cubes? All the same size. Hammers? Exactly the same. Does each player choose different ants with different mechanics? Hell no. Do we toss the ants in different pants? What kind of idiot designer would do that? Until fighting game developers can make timeless fun games without messy imbalances like character select screens they're just for fun.
Click to expand...
 
Scott The Scot

Scott The Scot

Where there is smoke, there is cancer.
GGA pimpimjim said:
http://smashboards.com/threads/character-competitive-impressions.367669/page-504#post-18792817

Time to flip a table and do some game design school.

Balance is a subtractive design element; in other words, balance is the absence of certain things. Specifically, balance is the absence of factors that degenerate asymmetry.

Balance is the absence of:
  1. Unfairness
  2. Polarization
  3. Homogenization
Unfairness is the strict superiority of options. Melee Fox, Brawl Meta Knight, and Smash 4 Diddy are unfair, which means they are simply better than the other characters on average. Unfairness is the simplest and easiest to identify problem, but it is only only element of balance.

Polarization is certain specific characters beating certain other specific character, regardless of average balance. (aka "counters") Melee Sheik, Brawl DDD, and Smash 4 Little Mac are very polarized characters. Polarization takes more time to identify, and is harder to address.

Homogenization is the absence of asymmetry in the first place. This is the most subjective and difficult to quantify element, but it just as (if not more) important, because it defeats the point of pursuing everything else.


Any two elements can be easily addressed by sacrificing the other, but none of these are acceptable:
  • You can trivially depolarize any game while preserving character diversity if you just accept blatant unfairness.
  • You can trivially solve any unfairness in any game while preserving character diversity if you just make a ring of pure counters.
  • You can trivially remove all unfairness and polarization by making everyone the same character.
None of these games are balanced. If we insist that any of these cases are semantically "balanced", then we have forfeited all meaningful function of the word so the point as moot. At best we could say these cases are "trivially balanced", like the trivial "solution" of a math problem that isn't actually a useful solution at all.


There is perceptually the most confusion from amateur game designers about polarization. Some go so far as to put polarization on a pedestal, actually making imbalance a design goal. Hard facts:
  • Rock-paper-scissors is a terrible game.
  • Rock-paper-scissors is not a balanced game. (As described above)
  • True counters are bad for a game.
  • Hard counters are bad for a game.
  • Soft counters are bad for a game.
  • All the deepest matchups in virtually any competitive game are 5:5.
  • Ideal balance is a matchup chart of entirely 5:5.
  • Yes, this (absolute zero polarization) is impossible, just like absolute zero unfairness is impossible.
  • But this is still the only correct goal.
If any StarCraft matchup exceeds 55:45, that represents a huge balance problem to the game. Blizzard cannot turn Starcraft into rock-paper-scissors and call it a competitive game. 0% of competitive games should be won at the character select screen. They should not even be 10% won at the character select screen.

Blizzard and Riot have the biggest balance design teams in the world. The vast majority of their time and resources goes towards fighting polarization. David Sirlin obsessively balances his games, and spends the vast majority of that time on polarization. When we made BBrawl, probably 90% of our time was dealing with polarization factors.

Unfairness is, in comparison, quite easy.


Final note: The word "counter" is overloaded. We have been talking about top-level, out-of-game-selected elements--like characters in a fighting game, or races in an RTS.

This does not apply at all to local components, such as a fighting game move, a card game card, or an RTS unit. It's okay for ZSS paralyzer to "counter" or "answer" certain moves. (While it's bad for ZSS to have a 9:1 against Fox, or even a 6:4.)

Team-composition games are tricky (Pokemon, LoL, TF2), since characters are only components of your actual team, just like ZSS paralyzer is just a component of her full character. This means they are somewhere in between, resulting in some weird non-zero target of polarization. Some games target more polarization (Pokemon) and some less (LoL), but either way it is a separate and unrelated topic.


tl;dr - Polarization is a component of balance and strictly bad regarding top-level elements of competitive games. It is neither good nor the lesser of any evils. Stop wishing that your intricate and deep competitive games get turned into character select screen rock-paper-scissors.
Click to expand...
Braindead sent me here. Have a like.
 
Reactions: GAV
ErMac333

ErMac333

Mortal
Impossible, aside from the fact that "perfect" is unnatainable with a game that's developed in 3 years with many variables, a lot of what people judge "unbalanced" is merely subjective.

Of course there are facts and it's possible to have a situation in which it's balanced as much as possible for a fair and fun competition, but still, some people are gonna claim otherwise, even when it comes to a single issue people disagree, some say it's right and some say it's wrong, how is a perfectly balanced roster is ever achievable like this?
 
Reactions: GAV
Pterodactyl

Pterodactyl

Plus on block.


Modern Tekken is balanced as fuck, every character is viable, no one has any notably bad or good match-ups, everyone has an answer for everything.

And this is a game series in which the roster for each installment is larger and larger( TTT2 had like 60 characters with only like 5 being semi-clones) and every character has +100 move move-lists.

To have such a big and diverse stable of characters whilst keeping a splendid balance, Tekken surely deserves praise.

 
Last edited:
Temjiin

Temjiin

www.mkxframedata.com
@BatmanBeatsCap

Good thread and unfortunately I was out for a few hours so am late to the party.

Here's what I think:

74 character variations, 2,701 possible matchups in the game.

How is it physically possible to make each one of these matchups 5-5?

I think the main flaw to your argument is that tiers shouldn't exist, well these are entirely subjective. You could argue that out of those 2,701 matchups, all are so similar that there's no need for tiers. That would be a worthy argument. However analytically and numerically speaking the numbers won't lie. 5 characters/variations will have more losing matchups than others. Does that make them unviable or "low tier"? Absolutely not. It just means they are literally in the bottom 5 and that is absolutely unavoidable.
 
Reactions: GAV
buyacushun

buyacushun

Normalize grab immunity.
Pterodactyl said:


Modern Tekken is balanced as fuck, every character is viable, no one has any notably bad or good match-ups, everyone has an answer for everything.

And this is a game series in which the roster for each installment is larger and larger( TTT2 had like 60 characters with only like 5 being semi-clones) and every character has +100 move move-lists.

To have such a big and diverse stable of characters whilst keeping a splendid balance, Tekken surely deserves praise.

Click to expand...
I love tekken and think it's a nice example of how a good base game can allow for great balance. At least that's where I think most of Tekken's stability comes from. But matchup numbers can still be skewed in that game. @SaltShaker posted on the T7 discussion forum that he felt Jin-Asuka is heavily in Jin's favor. To a point where Jin just outclasses Asuka in every way possible. But I'm sure the certain console version rebalance that always happens will fix this and a few other problems that game has

BatmanBeatsCap said:
Thank you very much!
Click to expand...
No problem man. I always wanted to make my own fighter so I really enjoy threads like these and others. I find theory-fighting to be a conversation I could have all day. Good Luck to you man!!! Hope you manage to create a great indie fighter. Have a Skullgirls type story lol.
 
SaltShaker

SaltShaker

In Zoning We Trust
Pterodactyl said:


Modern Tekken is balanced as fuck, every character is viable, no one has any notably bad or good match-ups, everyone has an answer for everything.

And this is a game series in which the roster for each installment is larger and larger( TTT2 had like 60 characters with only like 5 being semi-clones) and every character has +100 move move-lists.

To have such a big and diverse stable of characters whilst keeping a splendid balance, Tekken surely deserves praise.

Click to expand...
buyacushun said:
I love tekken and think it's a nice example of how a good base game can allow for great balance. At least that's where I think most of Tekken's stability comes from. But matchup numbers can still be skewed in that game. @SaltShaker posted on the T7 discussion forum that he felt Jin-Asuka is heavily in Jin's favor. To a point where Jin just outclasses Asuka in every way possible. But I'm sure the certain console version rebalance that always happens will fix this and a few other problems that game has.
Click to expand...
Yup. Imo Tekken is the answer. You want to talk about balanced roster? 95% of the cast viable? Tekken. You'll have 50 characters and only two 3-7 MU's in the entire game lol.

The thing that still amazes me is that it isn't like everyone plays like robots. From Paul to Yoshi to Ling to King to Steve, the fighting styles are VASTLY different each character, yet the game is incredibly balance. Like the "low tiers" in Tekken are as good as other games upper mid tiers lol. All the low tiers place in Tekken and can hang with the top.

Pre-release Shaheen is broken, and Asuka gets demolished by Jin to say the least and she's really bad, but after more updates and preparation for console the final version will be the normal uber balance they've had the last few games.
 
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