This game is ridiculously balanced

[16 Bit]

Plus, doesn't the fact that PPJ "counter-picked" with characters like Zatanna and Lex (as opposed to Kabals of this game Aquaman and MMH) say something about the game's balance? The guy we all joked about being our "low tier hero" just won the biggest tournament since the game's big patch.

Exactly. This isn't King using his pocket Kenshi that covers a ton of match ups easily. If PPJ using his stable of oddball characters is bad then I don't want this game to be right. This was awesome.

It's not entirely accurate to call Hawkgirl PPJ's main anyway. If he has to have one it's her, she's probably his best character and who he'd go with against a complete unknown, but at GBS he uses whoever he randomly feels like and even at NEC he was switching the entire tournament. He used Hawkgirl against his first two opponents, Lex against Jupiter, Zatanna against CD Jr, Hawkgirl against Arma, Zatanna/Lex against Grr, then finished with Hawkgirl against Tyrant. For his notable opponents it was actually about evenly split. PPJ being PPJ.

 

[4x4lo8o]

This isn't a good example though. PPJ does use Hawkgirl against Bane. He uses her against Max at our weeklies sometimes. He also uses Lex, Zatanna and even Shazam. Like many match ups who he uses depends on his mood at the time. For NEC he was mostly using Hawkgirl so I can't speak for why he used Zatanna and Lex against Grrr. Maybe he felt Grrr was less likely to know those MU and that'd be an edge. I would bet if you asked him he'd say he is quite confident he could possibly beat Grr with all 4 of his characters. It's not really fair to call them counterpicks either when they all naturally do good against Bane.

Fair enough. I don't know Hawkgirls mu's particularly well or follow Chicago's scene very closefully. I did know you guy's have a Bane and that PPJ would have experience in that match up and I also know Hawkgirl has at least a few really bad match ups, so I presumed PPJ knew Bane to be one of those match ups. I'm guessing that's how it looked to anybody watching the tournament without any background knowledge of the players, that was the only streamed match where PPJ used other characters(unless there were some streamed pool matches I missed)

Plus, doesn't the fact that PPJ "counter-picked" with characters like Zatanna and Lex (as opposed to Kabals of this game Aquaman and MMH) say something about the game's balance? The guy we all joked about being our "low tier hero" just won the biggest tournament since the game's big patch.

I guess it's cool that Injustice doesn't have the MK9 thing where every character tends to lose to every higher tier character, but I still don't think it says anything good about the game if otherwise viable characters have unwinnable match ups. Maybe this wasn't an example of that, but I think it does exist in the game and it sucks if you want to be a character loyalist but the character you want to chose has match ups that you can't reasonably win at a high level. Especially since you can even chose a fairly decent character and still end up with match ups like that.


I think the game's balanced better than MK9 for sure, and either way I love playing and watching, but there were half a dozen posts above mine stating that NEC decided that this game has great balance, that there's no more argument to be had. That's bullshit

 

[Red Reaper]

I guess it's cool that Injustice doesn't have the MK9 thing where every character tends to lose to every higher tier character, but I still don't think it says anything good about the game if otherwise viable characters have unwinnable match ups. Maybe this wasn't an example of that, but I think it does exist in the game and it sucks if you want to be a character loyalist but the character you want to chose has match ups that you can't reasonably win at a high level. Especially since you can even chose a fairly decent character and still end up with match ups like that.


I think the game's balanced better than MK9 for sure, and either way I love playing and watching, but there were half a dozen posts above mine stating that NEC decided that this game has great balance, that there's no more argument to be had. That's bullshit

Yeah. I think for character loyalists that don't mind playing mid tier and up MK9 is better. But for people that don't mind having a team of characters, Injustice is better..

 

[TheSpore]

Here is the problem I see with many of these posts. Thinking that bad MUs is a sign of bad balance is just a bad way of thinking. For one we all know the Grundy and HG MU is an uphill battle for him, but it is all but unwinable for him. Claiming bad balance due to PPJ picking Ztanna and Lex for a Bane MU is just odd too, Bane and HG is not a bad MU either for HG, IMO its about the same as fighting Grundy. Bad MUs will exist in all FGs its the nature of the games themselves, some characters will just have the tools in place that will help negate anothers. A good reason we didn't see this tourney be dominated by the likes of dozens of BA and SM players is not only a sign of balance, but a sign that players are finally learning their MUs. This game requires one to learn your MUs, even if say the Sinestro and HG MU is fully in Sinestro's favor, if the Sinestro player did not sit down and learn the MU itself they will likely struggle or lose the match. Also, (Don't crucify me for saying this) it is best t learn how to run more than one character at the highest level in a FG, if you stay that lotyal you become predictable. Another thing claiming bad balance, due to CPing or simply not sticking with the same characetr the entire time can be a number of things, from a bad MU or to the player just having more confidence in using said character against another.

The fact this game had such a large amount of diversity in it is a sign of balance. Of course we will see a SM player in the top 8 we are gonna see tons of em throughout the tourney, same with BM as well, why is this well think about how popular those two are in and outisde of the game.

 

[ApocaLips]

What's your problem?
I didn't claim that the game is unbalanced simply because Superman made an appearance in top 8 nor did I make a strong claim that Hawkgirl will 'never win again'

Yes you did. This is your post unedited.

I still don't think this games balance is particularly good. NEC was great, but we still saw Superman in Grand Finals and I doubt Hawkgirl's ever going to win another major.

a character that was supposed to have been nerfed into the ground.
Yeah, seeing that character in Grand Finals again(and from 2 people in top 8, and 4 in top 16) causes me some worry about the games balance long term.

Well, there you go. You don't want balance. You want Superman nerfed into the ground.

Again, given the investment all four of those players have made in Superman, they absolutely would have played him at the next major even if he's a poor character overall. The fact that they didn't main him is actually a sign he was overnerfed.

As far as Hawkgirl, she has some really bad match ups. PPJ got pretty lucky in that regards(I'm not saying his bracket was free, that he didn't play anyone good, or attempting to take anything away from him, just that he got fairly lucky as far as Hawkgirls match ups go) and we still saw some counterpicking from him.

PPJ plays a tournament level Lex, Zatanna, and Shazam as well. To predict he won't win another major based on Hawkgirl matchups alone (which aren't even close to set in stone post 1.06) is ridiculous. PPJ outplayed his competition at every turn, and calling his 1st place finish luck is frankly being a dick to him.

And balance doesn't mean no counterpicking. You seem confused on that point. A balanced game doesn't need to have 5-5s across the board.

Despite that I didn't make an absolute claim that Hawkgirl's 'never going to win anything' again, I said that I don't think it's likely we'll see a Hawkgirl player win another major of that size.

I don't really care how strongly you pose the opinion. It's still completely baseless. We don't know how good Hawkgirl really is. The only data point we have is that of the two major Hawkgirl players, one of them won the first major he went to with her. You can't ask for a better sign of character viability than that.

And again, seeing other characters win other majors is indicative of balance, not lack thereof.



Tl;dr: I'm sorry that you think that four former Superman mains switching to Superman as an alt and losing with them is a sign of poor balance. It's not.

 

[Chokeapotamus]

Characters having specific bad matchups against some characters and good against others is a solid sign of balance as long as it applies across the board (or if all characters were 5-5). Even in the real world, certain fighters (say Fighter A) can dominate opponents of one style and get their asses handed to them by a lesser fighter using a style (or has a certain body type) that causes major problems for Fighter A. You see this often in UFC and that is why there are so few undefeated champs--everyone has a weakness that someone can exploit.
Without 5-5s across the board, the best scenario is for a series of good and bad matchups distributed evenly across the cast where no single character can dominate (A beats B, B beats C, C beats A). This would be very difficult to accomplish due to the regular discovery of new tech but it lends to a much more interesting game where all characters have viability. Players would either need to develop other characters to be able to avoid bad matchups or just become so awesome with their main that they could push past a bad matchup to win. Either situation would make for some pretty hype matches.

 

[THTB]

A game's balance has nothing to do with how much counterpicking is there. It has more to do with how viable the weaker characters are in relation to the stronger ones.

This game isn't perfect, but it could be a lot worse. I still think there isn't a character with a questionable matchup. That won't be settled for a while, and I don't feel like it will get to that point. I'm not totally sold on MMH (even though he is a ridiculous character), so yeah.

 

[Sami]

NEC looked really balanced

Discuss

Raven vs. Grundy.

Most people really do not care if there are no overall dominant characters. By balance people mean 5-5s across the board, not counter-picking your main's bad-matchups, no uphill struggles unless your opponent doesn't know the MU. MK9 in tourneys has excessive counter-picking and it was lame as hell.

Personally, I'd prefer characters to be locked in at the start of the tourney (and this applies to all fighting games, not just Injustice). Register with a character and you have to use it for the whole thing. Bad MUs would not be tolerated by the player-base anywhere near as much as they are now.

 

[LiangHuBBB]

This game's balance is better than SSFIV...

 

[Solid]

Superman is garbage now. Well he is below average. If he can get his lasers back it will make his F23 game viable once more. Want to get in against old lasers, eat the nerfed F23. It is all I want. Discuss.

 

[Colonel-Gilgamesh]

I'm still genuinely shocked by the lack of supposedly uber characters in top 8(Aquaman, MMH, Zod). Only one AM was there and none of the others.

 

[Matix218]

Raven vs. Grundy.

Most people really do not care if there are no overall dominant characters. By balance people mean 5-5s across the board, not counter-picking your main's bad-matchups, no uphill struggles unless your opponent doesn't know the MU. MK9 in tourneys has excessive counter-picking and it was lame as hell.

Personally, I'd prefer characters to be locked in at the start of the tourney (and this applies to all fighting games, not just Injustice). Register with a character and you have to use it for the whole thing. Bad MUs would not be tolerated by the player-base anywhere near as much as they are now.

The thing is though it would be almost impossible to make a game like this and still keep the individual characters and their tools unique enough to be interesting. Every game will always have matchups where one characters specific tools pose a problem for other specific characters. Plus seeing people overcome bad match ups is the main reason why tournaments are so exciting

 

[Sami]

Every game will always have matchups where one characters specific tools pose a problem for other specific characters.

That is not an excuse to give up trying. As for the unique thing, as above IGAU has better balance and more varied fighters then SSF4 where half the characters (I exaggerate) are fireball/spin kick/uppercut.

 

[Sami]

I'm still genuinely shocked by the lack of supposedly uber characters in top 8(Aquaman, MMH, Zod). Only one AM was there and none of the others.

NEC was Injustice: Obscure Characters Among Us (not that catchy I admit). Now that the lesser-played characters have a good chance, the players of said characters exposed a LOT of MU knowledge deficiencies. Getting solid practice against a good Hawkgirl, Raven, Grundy, Lex, Bane, etc, is difficult and the players of those characters capitalised on it. Can't remember the Superman who Blind_Man played on Stream but he kept dashing into Soul Crush over and over and over and over again.

Almost everyone knows the common Superman, Aquaman, BA, etc tech. Not saying it's easy to counter, but they know what to expect. Who could honestly say they knew what Hawkgirl was truly capable of before this weekend? There may be some really REALLY obvious and dumb counters to what seemed to be an unrelenting and unstoppable mace assault. Now's the time to start grinding out those matches and learn the roster properly


edit: I am in no way trying to lessen the achievements of the Top 8. Just putting 9+ on maximum blast

 

[4x4lo8o]

A game's balance has nothing to do with how much counterpicking is there. It has more to do with how viable the weaker characters are in relation to the stronger ones.

If you had a game where every character had the same number of good and bad match ups but every match up was an 8-2 or 2-8, would you say that's a balanced game?

Maybe I've been using a different definition of balance, but that's the idea I've been getting at. Injustice obviously isn't that bad, but imo having match ups where you feel forced to counterpick(not 'oh, I don't feel like playing that match up with this character', which definitely happens a lot, but match ups that are bad enough that any reasonable expectation you have of winning more likely comes from the opponent fucking up or not knowing the match up than strong play on your own part) isn't good balance.

 

[THTB]

If you had a game where every character had the same number of good and bad match ups but every match up was an 8-2 or 2-8, would you say that's a balanced game?

Maybe I've been using a different definition of balance, but that's the idea I've been getting at. Injustice obviously isn't that bad, but imo having match ups where you feel forced to counterpick(not 'oh, I don't feel like playing that match up with this character', which definitely happens a lot, but match ups that are bad enough that any reasonable expectation you have of winning more likely comes from the opponent fucking up or not knowing the match up than strong play on your own part) isn't good balance.

Like I said, this game's balance isn't perfect. However, it's not like it's that bad. The balance I'm talking about is that there isn't a character without a questionable matchup. Which, IMO, this game does meet.

Also, a lot of people like to look at matchups that are 4-6s and want to pick someone else. Like, Kusumondo takes Honda in ST into 2-8 matchups and actually remains competitive even vs top players, in a game so fleshed out and practiced that you seriously have to work for your openings. The way this game is, there are certain situations that can easily reverse the playing field if you play your shit right, such as the corner games and some of the bogus 50/50s that exist. Grundy touching you once, GL getting one knockdown, Doomsday getting you to the corner, Supes pushing you to the corner, BG getting one bola, Sinestro getting one shackle, KF doing anything, and the list goes on. That shit makes harder matchups so much more bearable than otherwise.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Balance doesn't mean there are 0 bad matchups in a game; it just means that most of the cast has a solid/fair chance of doing well against the rest of the cast, including the better characters.

 

[MILE_HIGH_CLUB]

You want MU experience you want to play the best in IGAU? Play Ai very hard with your best character. Set a goal and think that you will not lose a single set....CHALLENGE . Truth be told this game has exceeded it's goals as a Fg it's uniquely Balanced and NRS gave their community patches and tons of content unlike many Fg today could you imagined if NRS took the CAPCOM approach lol...I still believe mk9 should've had a Ultimate like umk3 , but what if IGAU made their community come out the pocket by making a super,ultra,brutal editions to IGAU and basically playing the exact game lol.This Fgc really needs to be happy for what you got. Ares,HG,Harley all day mid Tier force

 

[Colonel-Gilgamesh]

You want MU experience you want to play the best in IGAU? Play Ai very hard with your best character.

Then it becomes a battle of 'find the hole in the AI programming. AI doesn't learn. Bad training partner.

Just play online till you find someone good with a certain character, then friend them and do matches with them. Rinse repeat for 3 different players per character.

 

[THTB]

Then it becomes a battle of 'find the hole in the AI programming. AI doesn't learn. Bad training partner.

Just play online till you find someone good with a certain character, then friend them and do matches with them. Rinse repeat for 3 different players per character.

I'm not filling up my friends list with just IGAU players because fuck XBL friend list limitations.

 

[Colonel-Gilgamesh]

I'm not filling up my friends list with just IGAU players because fuck XBL friend list limitations.

Delete them after a while then. Or play on next gen console. I think they said unlimited friends list. I dunno, I'm on PSN

 

[MILE_HIGH_CLUB]

XBl players will not friend just anybody lol great players that is .

 

[TheSpore]

I play against anyone online simply because even facing a scrub might still teach me something I did not knwo about a certain matchup

 

[Espio]

I play against anyone online simply because even facing a scrub might still teach me something I did not knwo about a certain matchup

I agree, I play anybody whose willing to sit down and play with me/learn regardless of skill level as long as people are mature and don't make tons of excuses all the time, that personally irritates me to no end lol.

 

[TheSpore]

I agree, I play anybody whose willing to sit down and play with me/learn regardless of skill level as long as people are mature and don't make tons of excuses all the time, that personally irritates me to no end lol.

lol I feel ya there man, I got beat some scrub a while back who decided to troll me since he was low level and I was a 64, plaing against a massive delay issue, yeah even KDZ or Rico would have had issues there.

I look at this way regardless of who you play against either we will teach them something or I will learn something even if its something small, its still something I didn't know. I managed to get a ranked mirror match with a HG player back when I mained her and somehow I won even though this guy idd things I didn't even know were possible with the character and he even came back ofr more. It just showed me more and more of what I can do with the character. Sometimes just watching poeple play isn't enough to give ideas you have to experience it.