CrazyFingers
The Power of Lame Compels You
Hey guys, CrazyFingers here and today I'm here to just talk about a few specific things involving balance for fighting games and where MKXL should probably want to be after its final patch is said and done. So without further ado, the points I will be covering are these.
When are the Top Tier "Too" Top Tier
So whenever there is a fighting game, there is always a "Top Tier". However, the question that needs to be asked when talking about balancing the top tier is "When is this list of characters/specific character too much in one direction." and by that I mean, when is a character 'broke'. When is it at the point where a character NEEDS to be dealt with. Before we go into that, we have to ask exactly what a 'broken' character entails. A character is broken when it has a tool or tools that cause you to play the game in an almost 100% different way due to their impact on the game. There are obviously varying levels of broken but this kind of broken is when you almost feel like you're playing a different game in between rounds. For example, pre nerf Quan Chi is one of the epitomes of a broken character. The things he did were NOT ok. It caused you to be in a permanent state of having to block in ways that, quite frankly, this game was not meant to do. "Low (Tiny Pause) Overhead. Low IMMEDIATELY overhead, Overhead IMMEDIATELY low, etc etc" are not exactly what NRS was probably thinking of when they thought of what they wanted in their game. The PEAK of this was on release Tanya or as I like to call her "Block Simulator" because let's face it, the character was like playing solitaire. So there will always be the Quans and Tanyas, but what about the less extreme but still REALLY high up there. Well, that's what we have right now. The following is a short list of character that break the game in ridiculous ways, and how they do this.
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A Fighting Game Balance Team's "End Goal"
When people talk about a fighting game being "Balanced" the majority is probably thinking something along the lines of "Everyone is viable and the same power level" seems like a reasonable idea for balancing right? Well the problem is, it's not. Whenever you are talking about a competitive game of ANY kind, there will always be the strongest, the middle tier, and the weakest. The goal of balance team in a fighting game specifically isn't to make the weak as strong as the current top and the current top as weak as the current low tier. This is what people have been so kind enough to attach a phrase to, that phrase being "Tier Shifting". This is a state of being where the game becomes a boring cycle of balance patches not improving the meta of the game sometimes making it even worse (see pre MKXL in comparison to post MKXL, the results are clearly worse) And the way that this kind of design perpetuates itself is when the community CONTINUOUSLY overreacts to the things presented to them. A perfect example of overreaction on the part of the community is when people get a hold of NRS games early/when they get them day one. The community will every single time, WITHOUT FAIL, cry "Overpowered" and "Nerf this, Nerf that" upon seeing something that is even remotely strong (RIP On Release Ice Klone, you were never given the light of day). This kind of behavior obviously has perpetuated itself till this very day with MKX. Triborgs getting over normalized while Alien is kept at a VERY unstable and powerful form, because all the attention was brought to the "OP OP" of Triborg. So if constantly nerfing and buffing characters to overblown proportions isn't how we balance the game, then how is. Well, it's simple, balancing in a fighting game is about closing the gap. Now what I mean by this is that yes, every character can be played at the highest level and win. The mid tier competes with top, the top competes with low tier and vice versa. There will ALWAYS be a top 5. Never EVER in a million years will you find a fighting game that doesn't have the strongest and the weakest. This will ALWAYS be the case but the balancing team isn't there to fulfill your dreams of having a top tier monster at your disposal because you bitched about them not being good enough. They are there to normalize, to make sure that you Unbreakable Sub CAN beat the Demo Sonya. A perfect example of this sort of design is Soul Calibur 2. This is one of if not the most balanced fighting game ever made, I will fight till my last dying breath about this. The tiers were all there, with Spawn being the only really "trash" (god I hate that term in FG's) character in the game, the rest of it was 100% VIABILITY. If you can eventually beat that Demo with Unbreakable, we made it boys...and girls I guess.
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What is "Preemptive Nerfing" and Why is it Unhealthy for the Game
So, usually around incoming patch time you will see countless threads crying for nerfs and buffs. But one thing that I'm sure we have seen is "Nerf this guy 'just in case' he's op after the current top tier are gone". I will preface this by informing you of my AGGRESSIVE hatred of this mentality of thinking. Why do I hate this mentality? I am so glad you asked, I love a good rant. The reason this line of thinking is Unhealthy is simple. We have no way of TRULY knowing the outcome of them at their current state being in a game where the original oppressive top tier does not exist. This creates things like Cyber Sub Zero in his current state. NRS didn't give it more than a month before they nerfed the ever loving shit out of him and now, a lot of people call him bottom 5 in the game and for good reason. This was most definitely a form of Preemptive nerfing. Another perfect example of this is Leatherface, in fact, this is possibly the BIGGEST example of it. Upon release Leatherface had a few notable things in his arsenal. In Killer, he obtained unarmorable unblockable setups that were either backdash or eat it. This was strong, but by no means something that needed to be nerfed, and yet NRS was SO FUCKING SCARED of this possibly making everyone mad that they took it away in the blink of an eye. The other thing they snatched from him were both in Butcher, his now worst variation. He had a true vortex by ending combos in S22, which forced the opponent to guess and he ALSO had the fastest command grab in the game in the form of his 6f DBF 1. However, they took away BOTH of these. And these nerfs weren't based off of any concrete data, it was all "Just in case they're op" nerfs. This form of thinking can ALSO be applied to buffs, which is fucking terrifying and has created things like Piercing Mileena and Takeda. Characters who people constantly called trash, low tier etc that got more buffs than some characters get nerfs and buffs combined. This form of thinking causes for flimsy design that just makes the entirety of your game a balancing nightmare.
WELL THERE IT IS FOLKS!
Hope you all learned a thing or two or at least have some stuff think about. Feel free to discuss what I went over in the comments, would love to hear what the community has to say about this topic!
- When is a Top 5/10 list a list of characters that MUST be dealt with?
- What is the final goal for a competitive game's balance team?
- Finally, why "preemptive nerfing" is an unhealthy practice in a patch based fighting game.
When are the Top Tier "Too" Top Tier
So whenever there is a fighting game, there is always a "Top Tier". However, the question that needs to be asked when talking about balancing the top tier is "When is this list of characters/specific character too much in one direction." and by that I mean, when is a character 'broke'. When is it at the point where a character NEEDS to be dealt with. Before we go into that, we have to ask exactly what a 'broken' character entails. A character is broken when it has a tool or tools that cause you to play the game in an almost 100% different way due to their impact on the game. There are obviously varying levels of broken but this kind of broken is when you almost feel like you're playing a different game in between rounds. For example, pre nerf Quan Chi is one of the epitomes of a broken character. The things he did were NOT ok. It caused you to be in a permanent state of having to block in ways that, quite frankly, this game was not meant to do. "Low (Tiny Pause) Overhead. Low IMMEDIATELY overhead, Overhead IMMEDIATELY low, etc etc" are not exactly what NRS was probably thinking of when they thought of what they wanted in their game. The PEAK of this was on release Tanya or as I like to call her "Block Simulator" because let's face it, the character was like playing solitaire. So there will always be the Quans and Tanyas, but what about the less extreme but still REALLY high up there. Well, that's what we have right now. The following is a short list of character that break the game in ridiculous ways, and how they do this.
- Sonya (Demolitions)- Shock Grenades create multiple scenarios in which you basically have to throw your knowledge of fighting games out the window. Trades are non-existent, and the Sonya has complete control over the situation.
- Alien (All Variations)- Alien throws any sense of spacing out the window with simply 3 buttons. D4, B3, F4. The fact that alien is able to hit you from near full screen with normals and little to no way of punishing it, along with that being a 50/50 on top of it, is ridiculous in its own right. But when you get into canceling into flips and 50/50's after landing a D4, you start to go to a crazy land where this is no longer a fighting game.
- Takeda (Not Ronin)- Takeda has this little move called EX Kunai. This does almost the exact same dirt as Sonya without it being so flexible. Throwing this move out makes it so the opponent has to try and guess SO MANY THINGS that it is insane. Do they release and cash out on plus frames/chip? Do they hard to block able? Do they delay it? Who knows m8! This is MKX! Where the only thing you need to know is that THERE ARE NO GOOD OPTIONS.
- Kano (Cutthroat)- So here's a fun game. It's the "How many times can you guess before you get tagged?" you better hope the answer is a high number because Cutthroat will mix you to the bank. Now usually this wouldn't be an issue, 50/50's are just a commonplace thing in MKX. But 50/50's into plus frames and EVEN MORE 50/50s? And if that wasn't enough, you also have to think "Will he read the armored wakeup?" because if he does, you eat 40% minimum for your troubles. AND the armor breaking setup has to versions! A low, and an overhead! Causing the setup to basically be able to be thrown out there whenever! The character causes you to constantly flip coins with little interaction with what he's doing.
- D'vorrah (Swarm Queen)- So there is one thing and one thing only that causes this character to break the game. No it's not grenade cancels and no it is no 50/50's. It is fucking puddle. Puddle, is +22 on block. Puddle, can be used to break armor. Puddle, makes it so there is only two kinds of wakeups, and that is delayed wakeup and wakeup block, because this damn tool causes you to play hospital waiting room and guess what! You're the guy with a gunshot wound when there's three pregnant ladies and a stabbing victim in front of you because you'll be waiting a LONG time friend.
- Jason Vorheez (Unstoppable)- Ok...so I love this character. He's one of my mains and I think he's super fun...but DD3...breaks armor. Like...talk about LITERALLY breaking the game. The character makes everyone freaking Blood God Kotal when it comes to wakeup options. Do I think he needs a nerf? Not really. Does this break the game in a huge way? Yes. Why did I put him on here? To show that you can break the game and NOT be super overpowered.
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A Fighting Game Balance Team's "End Goal"
When people talk about a fighting game being "Balanced" the majority is probably thinking something along the lines of "Everyone is viable and the same power level" seems like a reasonable idea for balancing right? Well the problem is, it's not. Whenever you are talking about a competitive game of ANY kind, there will always be the strongest, the middle tier, and the weakest. The goal of balance team in a fighting game specifically isn't to make the weak as strong as the current top and the current top as weak as the current low tier. This is what people have been so kind enough to attach a phrase to, that phrase being "Tier Shifting". This is a state of being where the game becomes a boring cycle of balance patches not improving the meta of the game sometimes making it even worse (see pre MKXL in comparison to post MKXL, the results are clearly worse) And the way that this kind of design perpetuates itself is when the community CONTINUOUSLY overreacts to the things presented to them. A perfect example of overreaction on the part of the community is when people get a hold of NRS games early/when they get them day one. The community will every single time, WITHOUT FAIL, cry "Overpowered" and "Nerf this, Nerf that" upon seeing something that is even remotely strong (RIP On Release Ice Klone, you were never given the light of day). This kind of behavior obviously has perpetuated itself till this very day with MKX. Triborgs getting over normalized while Alien is kept at a VERY unstable and powerful form, because all the attention was brought to the "OP OP" of Triborg. So if constantly nerfing and buffing characters to overblown proportions isn't how we balance the game, then how is. Well, it's simple, balancing in a fighting game is about closing the gap. Now what I mean by this is that yes, every character can be played at the highest level and win. The mid tier competes with top, the top competes with low tier and vice versa. There will ALWAYS be a top 5. Never EVER in a million years will you find a fighting game that doesn't have the strongest and the weakest. This will ALWAYS be the case but the balancing team isn't there to fulfill your dreams of having a top tier monster at your disposal because you bitched about them not being good enough. They are there to normalize, to make sure that you Unbreakable Sub CAN beat the Demo Sonya. A perfect example of this sort of design is Soul Calibur 2. This is one of if not the most balanced fighting game ever made, I will fight till my last dying breath about this. The tiers were all there, with Spawn being the only really "trash" (god I hate that term in FG's) character in the game, the rest of it was 100% VIABILITY. If you can eventually beat that Demo with Unbreakable, we made it boys...and girls I guess.
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What is "Preemptive Nerfing" and Why is it Unhealthy for the Game
So, usually around incoming patch time you will see countless threads crying for nerfs and buffs. But one thing that I'm sure we have seen is "Nerf this guy 'just in case' he's op after the current top tier are gone". I will preface this by informing you of my AGGRESSIVE hatred of this mentality of thinking. Why do I hate this mentality? I am so glad you asked, I love a good rant. The reason this line of thinking is Unhealthy is simple. We have no way of TRULY knowing the outcome of them at their current state being in a game where the original oppressive top tier does not exist. This creates things like Cyber Sub Zero in his current state. NRS didn't give it more than a month before they nerfed the ever loving shit out of him and now, a lot of people call him bottom 5 in the game and for good reason. This was most definitely a form of Preemptive nerfing. Another perfect example of this is Leatherface, in fact, this is possibly the BIGGEST example of it. Upon release Leatherface had a few notable things in his arsenal. In Killer, he obtained unarmorable unblockable setups that were either backdash or eat it. This was strong, but by no means something that needed to be nerfed, and yet NRS was SO FUCKING SCARED of this possibly making everyone mad that they took it away in the blink of an eye. The other thing they snatched from him were both in Butcher, his now worst variation. He had a true vortex by ending combos in S22, which forced the opponent to guess and he ALSO had the fastest command grab in the game in the form of his 6f DBF 1. However, they took away BOTH of these. And these nerfs weren't based off of any concrete data, it was all "Just in case they're op" nerfs. This form of thinking can ALSO be applied to buffs, which is fucking terrifying and has created things like Piercing Mileena and Takeda. Characters who people constantly called trash, low tier etc that got more buffs than some characters get nerfs and buffs combined. This form of thinking causes for flimsy design that just makes the entirety of your game a balancing nightmare.
WELL THERE IT IS FOLKS!
Hope you all learned a thing or two or at least have some stuff think about. Feel free to discuss what I went over in the comments, would love to hear what the community has to say about this topic!