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Balance between characters has always been a key part of modern fighting games. So why did Capcom design the latest installment of its premier franchise with clear kings of the ring in mind?
With the release of Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, Capcom intentionally made new characters Yun and Yang the standout warriors of the game. These twins had versatile offenses backed up by safe special moves, strong mix-ups, great damage potential, and decent defensive options.
The competitive community has had to deal with these kung fu masters since the game came out in arcades. But I also wondered what these two mean for casual or intermediate players. So I rounded up four Bitmob members to discuss the issue with me.
Together we talked about character balance, the tier lists players use to rank characters, and what companies should focus on when developing these fighters. Here are the highlights below. For the full transcript with footnotes, click here.
The community members are (in order of appearance):
- Jonathan Ore, a Toronto resident who writes for Bitmob and the local site Dork Shelf. He hasn’t entered any tournaments but follows the scene.
- Alex Spruch, a tournament player whose most recent event was GVN Winter Brawl 5 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He writes for his own website, Spruchy.com.
- Chase Koeneke, a two-year Bitmobber who enjoys fighting games at a casual level. He also hosts the World 8 podcast.
- Daryl Bunao, a former tournament player from Northern California who has played at two Evo tournaments. He is an intern at Anime News Network and a former content producer for the Super Smash Bros. site All is Brawl.
Defining balance
Chris: Since we're talking about character balance, we should start off by asking for your definition of a “balanced” fighting game. Is it when every character has a fair chance of winning? Is it when not everyone is viable, but there is enough diversity to accommodate different play styles at a high level?
Jonathan: In pure theoretical terms, I think the former is true: where every character (save outliers like joke characters and A.I. bosses) has the same chance of winning against any other character — if the players are at the same skill level…
Alex: To me a balanced fighting game is when every member of the cast has options to deal with anything that might be thrown at them. Sometimes a character might not have the best answer…but as long as they have some sort of options in all situations, then a game is that much closer to being balanced. It's when a character has the best response to everything that imbalance starts to show itself.
Chase: I think the latter definition is more apt, but I don't begrudge a fighting game that balances all of its characters. As long as a variety of styles are available so that everyone can find something that works for them, I think you've got a winning formula.
This question seems more pointed to one-on-one fighters, though. When it comes to games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, the idea of tiers starts to hold a bit more weight.
Daryl: I feel that a "balanced" fighting game offers the players an assortment of characters that should have an equal, or at least what the community calls a 4-6 matchup, with the other members of the game's cast.
Yun and Yang vs. the world
Chris: Going back to what Alex said about balance, are Yun and Yang characters who have answers to everything to the point that they marginalize the rest of the roster?
Alex: Hah, I'm glad you picked up on that, Chris, because that's exactly what I was going for. Yun and Yang are overpowered specifically for that reason: They have the best answers for absolutely everything. I don't think it marginalizes the roster, but it's definitely to a point where it makes the twins more appealing than any other character in the game.
Daryl: When it comes to characters displaying heightened abilities, [most would allude to] the dominance of Magneto, Storm, Sentinel and maybe Cable in Marvel vs. Capcom 2…Both Yun and Yang are new characters, and it will take some time to fully determine whether or not the rest of the SSF4 cast can find tools to counter the twins.
Jonathan: Yun and Yang are problems for sure, but I'm fairly sure they represent a unique problem in that they were designed to be stronger from the outset. I think the designers intended to make them very appealing because the rest of the cast had been playable in SF4 for up to three years already, so it would easily shake up the roster and how other players reacted to them. Compare them to Evil Ryu and Oni, who generally didn't re-write the book on how people are playing the game.
Alex: I don't know if time is going to change anything regarding the twins. The game has been out in Japan since December, and the only weak matchups for the twins have been Zangief and Sagat (I think Fei Long might do decently as well).
Jonathan: Do tournament results and compiled tier listings really matter to a fighting game beyond the die-hard enthusiasts, though?…Right now in Arcade Edition, I have as many problems with a good Abel player as a good Yun player in my skill bracket.
Chase: Being more of a casual fighting fan — since I have not participated in any tournaments myself and don't really plan to — I can't really tell if a character is unbalanced on my own. It's not until I read and hear things from other people that I see this, and usually, it only manifests itself when play is way above my skill level.
Daryl: There is a division of answers when you factor what the level of player is. Your average Joe the Plumber can sit down after a day's work and play AE, enjoy his new characters, and play competitors around his same skill set…
At the tournament level, the top players are using characters that they are comfortable playing against the game's entire roster….As a former tournament player, I want to come out on top because I did not want to travel out 50-plus miles to lose two games and get called free on a live stream.1
Next page: The developer's role in balancing games, the difference between the twins and Fei Long, and whether there is a stigma to using top tiers.
1"Free" is lingo for when people lose quickly and brutally in a verses match, or for when a certain tactic will always work on them.
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqYaZwk3-tw&feature=related ]
The importance of balancing in game development
Alex: That brings up the question, though: Even if it goes unnoticed by a majority of the audience, should companies still strive to create a balanced product?
Daryl: Given the unavoidable competitive nature that fighting games have built over the past two decades, I think it would be wise for developers to consider making their game balanced so that individuals who have an affinity to a certain character can enjoy winning. Let's be honest: I despise losing, and I would be a masochist if I liked playing a character that's meant to lose all the time.
Jonathan: I think that producing a balanced fighter should still be important in the development process…I don't think, however, that producing a "tournament viable" game with airtight 5-5 matchups should be the main worry of that game. From a pure marketing perspective, the tournament players are a captive market to begin with. Making it fun and accessible with a variety of compelling characters should be the first concern, as it is with pretty much any video game with a narrative component these days.
Chase: Yes, developers should try to balance their games. Since casual players like me don't know the difference anyway, why not balance the game so that all players can enjoy it?
Where's the love for Fei Long?
Chris: Even with adding them [the twins], I think Capcom wanted the game to have balance…That also brings me to another character that’s been considered top tier that we haven't talked about: Fei Long. Why hasn't he been given the same amount of attention that the twins have?
Alex: I think Fei Long hasn't been mentioned as the twins because it's generally agreed he's not as strong as them, with worse match-ups against much of the cast (including the twins) and not nearly as many options. And to top it off he's not nearly as flashy!
Daryl: I think the reason why there hasn't been a red alert on Fei Long or any of the buffed returning characters solely rests on the amount of warning stories about Yuns dominating Japan…
This is almost like a modern day [legend,] where all walks of life gather at a local bar and talk tales of an unbeatable hero. In this case, it's tournament players going to arcades discussing how to handle Yun.
Jonathan: "The poor sod got up to his feet and looked up. The silhouette of a young man, his arms stretched out like a bird, blocked out the sun, appeared before him. Two sneaker-clad feet were divebombing towards his face.
It was the last thing he ever saw."
*drinks*
Tekken 6 and tier list stigmas
Alex: Heh, so what would you guys argue is the most balanced game at Evo this year? I'm going to have to go with Tekken 6.
Daryl: I've always thought of Tekken 6 as my perfect fighting game. I feel that the vast array of moves that every character has almost makes it seem that they all possess the exact same tools as the next character on the select screen…
That or Evo can run a Street Fighter 1 tournament. Nothing says balance like Ryu vs. Ken with exact same properties.
Chris: …I did want to ask you guys: Within your circle of friends, is there a stigma against choosing the best characters or picking from the low tier? …I tend to gravitate toward good-but-not-too-good fighters like Rose.
Chase: We don't let my friend Bryan use three Jins in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (he's just too good with the character to allow him more than one), and for TVC, we usually state before we play whether we want to play with the giant characters or not…Other than that, we really allow anything. No one's that good to make the tiers show through.
Jonathan: Among friends playing locally, it isn't an issue at all…Online's a different case…In SF4 I've avoided using guys like Ryu, Ken, Zangief and now Yun/Yang simply because they're everywhere. I run into so many of them that playing dozens of Ryu/Ryu matches sounds so boring. The few times that I get a Chun Li/Chun Li or Dudley/Dudley feel sort of special as a result…
Daryl: I have two answers for that. With my high school friends, we tend to play characters that we enjoy playing…
My friends in the competitive scene have various tastes depending on the game. In MVC3, they tend to gravitate to the best characters that suit their play styles…For games like SF4, BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, and Arcana Heart, my friends tend to pick a favorite character and ride him out to the bitter end…
Personally, I'm in that category…To me, picking a character isn't about who wins the most but who I have fun playing the most.
This is an abridged version of the conversation. Click here for the complete 4,900-word transcript that includes discussions on Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Smash Bros., anime-based fighters, and GamerBee’s victory over Justin Wong at Evo 2010.