3 Things you LOVE and HATE about most 2D fighting games.

Three things I like:
-spacing/footsies
-unique character archetypes/playstyles
-tutorial mode

Three things I hate:
-unnecessary comeback mechanics
-storylines that try too hard or are confusing
-shit netcode
 
SoNG-Of-SiLeNCe said:
I feel sorry for people with that mentality. Equal grounds is what breeds a real challenge based on skill.
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Because fighting games are emergent. How they're played is dictated by how the community plays it.

Also, experience has shown that the "broken" stuff usually makes the game more interesting. For example, MvC2 wouldn't be as fast paced without "glitches" such as wave-dashing, fast fly, unfly, tri dashes, double snaps, etc. The game becomes deeper and richer because of these. These things can also actually help make characters more viable. For example, Urien's unblockable setups in 3rd Strike help make him tournament viable. Even when Capcom took them out in a revision, the community simply played the older version to the point that the recent rerelease of the game uses that version.
 
SoNG-Of-SiLeNCe said:
I'm not arguing relevance, I disagree with a point of view.
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And I'm pointing out how history has shown that breaking things in a fighting game usually results in the game getting better. That's not opinion, that's fact (with actual historical data to back it up).
 
Eh, it's all relative.It's always better to have more characters viable but only if you can make them viable while making their playstyle unique. To make a game have perfect balance you would have to give all characters the exact same toolset which would eliminate any need to have more than one character. You really just have to balance viability with interesting playstyles and sometimes it doesn't pay off.
 
Better is subjective. You can't base fact off something that isn't fact.

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d3v said:
And I'm pointing out how history has shown that breaking things in a fighting game usually results in the game getting better. That's not opinion, that's fact (with actual historical data to back it up).
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I think we're talking about two different things here.
You're talking about something that Sirlin said too;
'Fact is that "cheap" is good because it makes the game meta evolve.' <~ To this I agree.
I'm talking about the inability of 40 out of 43 characters to be any viable and the top2 being utter bullshit, the third being impossible to beat by the other 40 as well but not as good as the top 2, and there being no amount of practice one can exert before one can beat A tier with B tier.
Typical example of this is MK9 where there are 6 tournament-viable characters all in all, Kabal and Kenshi being broken, and nobody in C tier ever standing a chance by raw matchup data to achieve even a 6-4 out of 10. Kitana is B tier and she still struggles 2-8 against Kenshi because that character is utter shit and admittedly an unpatched dlc.

Matchup data will be consistently inconsistent and "balance" is hard to achieve.

MY argument is that there is no need for the 30 characters if not only do they struggle uphill but end up in matchups 7-3 or worse. 6-4 is workable. 7-3 is bullshit. 8-2? Gotta be kidding me.

Yet again, because I know that most people don't like long text these days, my argument is that fewer characters work for better balance and do not give people the illusion of choice, BUT, the moderate opportunity for choice comes with success in effort.
 
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4 top tier characters is still all you really need, no matter the size of the roster.

From SonicHurricane.com - "What Does Unbalanced Mean"
To be clear, it doesn’t matter how many squares there are on the character select screen. Who cares whether five useless portraits remain in the game or fifty? Percentage-based breakdowns are meaningless. Only two factors count when considering balance: whether there are four or more characters in top tier, and whether the matchups between them measure up to our high standards. When either of these criteria ceases to be true, that’s when we should stop playing the game.

Until then, there’s nothing to complain about. You simply can’t expect much more than this. Yes, you may have to switch characters to accomodate the realization that your original choice can’t compete against top tier. However, if you enjoy the core game and you have four diverse characters to choose from, just pick one and continue enjoying it.
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And in any case, since tiers are based on matchups, you still have cases where low tiers will beat out top tiers (e.g. vanilla SF4 where Cammy was 6:4 against Akuma despite being low tier). Counterpicking is part of the game.
 
I remember in BB:CT the Nu/ Tager match-up was 10-0 Nu and the Nu/Haku match-up being like 9/8- 1/2 Nu. That is the highest level of bullshit ever.
 
Juece said:
I remember in BB:CT the Nu/ Tager match-up was 10-0 Nu and the Nu/Haku match-up being like 9/8- 1/2 Nu. That is the highest level of bullshit ever.
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Super Turbo has multiple 9:1 matchups and is still considered the greatest iteration of SFII ever, even in the face of the rebalanced HDR.

The key is that the cast is diverse and interesting enough that the game has a semblance of "meta-balance."

From Domination 101 - "Prelude to a Diss (Some Preliminary Remarks on Balance)"
SSF2T provides an excellent example of this type of meta-balance. In a "normally balanced" game, the possible opposing sides are identical, or at least functionally very similar, and of course, everyone has a roughly similar chance to win. Does everyone have a roughly equal chance to win in ST? No way. Are there stronger and weaker characters? You bet. There's quite a bit of distance between first and last place on the rankings chart. However, look at what you get in the trade: the characters in ST are genuinely different- very few play in ways that are at all similar. Each has distinct strengths. This is cool on its own (real variety is more fun), but adds even more in another way- the relative importance of each of their individual strengths varies from matchup to matchup. This is how genuinely different characters really repay the effort that their design requires- with real depth. Being good at a meta-balanced game doesn't entail just mastering some characters gimmick, then repeating it all day, come what may. Instead, you have to understand their strengths *in relation* to those of the other, different characters. You'll often need entirely different tactics against different opponents, even though you're playing the same character throughout. Chun Li, under some circumstances is best played as a keep-away turtle, in others wants to rush you down, doing anything she can to avoid being pushed back, and in still others, somewhere between these two extremes. This is how you get a game that stays interesting and becomes deeper with time, instead of a quickly-won race to discover who's stupid version of the same generic attack cant be retaliated against, and is therefore the champion.
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Things I Love
1. The "old-school" arcade feel.
2. How many mechanics are shared between them, yet are expanded and sometimes given new meaning by the developers to suit their game.
3. The combination of depth and simplicity. Sure, some 3D fighters you can start out with by button mashing, but they usually possess a higher learning curve than 2D, especially due to 3D movement.

Things I Hate
1. The recent trend of "comeback mechanic" bullshit. IMO, a truly skilled player should be able to win based on system, character, and matchup knowledge alone, without any assistance programmed in by the developers.
2. The recent trend of "2.5D" games. While the animations are more fluid in 3D, it considerably slows down the flow of battle. BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, and KOF XIII are prime examples of how with just a little hard work, even if it takes years to accomplish, a fighting game can have high-quality sprites while maintaining fluidity.
3. How most of their online is crap unless it's done by GGPO or ASW (only with Persona 4 Arena, BlazBlue's netcode was passable in CT but shit from CS onward, especially when I'm clearly blocking and it suddenly decides I'm not because of a little instance of lag).
 
Vulcan422 said:
3. The combination of depth and simplicity. Sure, some 3D fighters you can start out with by button mashing, but they usually possess a higher learning curve than 2D, especially due to 3D movement.
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Learning curves are debatable. A game like MvC2 has a learning curve that, as the game currently stands, takes years of play for anyone to even be considered to be "competitive."
Vulcan422 said:
2. The recent trend of "2.5D" games. While the animations are more fluid in 3D, it considerably slows down the flow of battle. BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, and KOF XIII are prime examples of how with just a little hard work, even if it takes years to accomplish, a fighting game can have high-quality sprites while maintaining fluidity.
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2.5D and polygons has nothing to do with speed. BlazBlue is actually pretty slow compared to GG and even KoF. Meanwhile, you can mod SFIV on the PC to run really, really fast.

The real culprit, something shared between BB and Marvel 3 is the large amounts of hitstop and histun that makes the game slow down once someone get's a hit confirm in.

Also, with SFIV and Marvel 3, the developers made a conscious decision to slow down the movement speed, most likely as a way to help the casuals get into it. Some of the top tiers in Marvel, those that can use glitches and exploits like tri-dashing, wave dashing and others can actually move just as fast as characters from MvC2.
 
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